Economic development, Social Condition, and Social Welfare Development : An International Comparison of Social Welfare Development

경제수준, 사회수준, 그리고 사회복지수준 : 국제간 사회복지수준 비교

This paper compares two indicators, economic development and social condition, to find a better way to measure the level of social welfare development. The results show that social condition is more adequate indicator than economic development. The social condition has high correlation with the development of social welfare in all the 78 countries as well as in five groups of countries when the economic development is controlled. The comparison of two indicators reveals important findings. Among other things, the higher the level of social condition compared with economic development, the larger the social welfare expenditure. This tendency is particularly strong among the western European countries and former socialist countries. This result implies that the macro-level policy of social redistribution is also important for the development of social welfare in addition to micro-level policy of income redistribution. As we expected, the results show that the level of Korean social welfare development is very low. Considering our levels of economic development and social condition, predicted social welfare expenditure from regression model is at least 17% of GDP, but we are spending only 30% of this predicted expenditure. Another serious problem in Korean social welfare is unbalanced expenditure between social insurance and public assistance. On the basis of these results, this paper suggests three implications for social policy to improve Korean social welfare: First of all, the gap between predicted and actual expenditures should be closed to improve the minimum level of social welfare. Secondly, the level of social condition itself should be improved to increase the public awareness of social welfare. Finally, the wide difference in expenditure between universal and selective social welfare programs should also be removed to decrease the relative deprivation of the poor.

본 논문은 국가간 사회복지수준을 비교하는 기준으로서 경제수준과 사회수준 중 후자가 보다 적절한 기준임을 밝혀냈다. 또한 사회복지지출이 많은 나라들일수록 사회수준이 경제수준보다 높은 경향을 보였는데 이는 경제성장 위주의 정책보다는 사회 각 부문의 균형적 발전을 통한 보편적 삶의 질, 즉 사회수준 향상이 사회복지수준 향상에 중요한 요인임을 제시하는 결과였다. 한국의 사회복지수준은 우리의 경제, 사회수준을 고려한 기대수준보다 현저히 낮다는 기존의 사실을 다시 한번 확인하였다. 이러한 결과를 근거로 보편적 삶의 질과 빈곤층의 삶의 질 수준과의 격차를 해소하여 권리로서의 사회복지를 실현하는 것이 시급한 과제라는 것과 사회수준 자체의 향상을 통해 사회복지에 대한 국민적 관심을 증가시키고, 사회복지부문간 격차, 즉 사회보험과 공공부조와의 현격한 차이를 줄이는 정책이 필요하다는 점을 제시하였다.