• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.49
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• pp.162-189
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• 2002

In general, every welfare state is to be productive. If not, the welfare state itself cannot be sustainable because resource for the development of welfare only comes from a sound level of economic development However, how to mix welfare and production differs from country to country. This article tackles this phenomenon as a starting point. Granted, contemporary studies of comparative welfare state often starts from the theory of welfare regime which has been suggested by Esping-Andersen. This article also regards the framework as an analytic tool to elaborate upon the concept of productive welfare and to categorize different types of conception of productive welfare. In liberal regime, the concept is so narrowly interpreted that they emphasize micro-efficiency of specific welfare programs. On the contrary, the other two regime types recognize the concept of productive welfare as relatively wide. Therefore, conservative and social democratic regimes underscore macro-efficiency of the welfare state as a whole. Empirical analyses of this article explores each regime's success and failure in terms of achieving fundamental goals of the welfare state, i.e. economic development and enhancement of equality. A series of evidence show that liberal regime fails in achieving both goals, while the other two regimes seem to be relatively successful. In conclusion, it may be pointed out that current tendency of neo-liberalism and anti-welfarism in Korea should be overcome, which must be the prime task of social welfare academia of this country.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.69 no.2
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• pp.9-30
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• 2017

Generally, regime shift occurs less frequently than policy change and/or government change. Regime shift needs alterations and changes along the three critical components which constitute a domestic regime: (1) the character of the socioeconomic coalition that rules the country; (2) the political and economic institutions through which power is acquired and exercised; and (3) the public policy profile that give political direction to the nation. This paper tries to examine characteristics of the welfare regime of Korea, and explore policy reform options for the welfare regime shift in Korea. From the viewpoint of livelihood security perspective, I firstly tries to examine development process of Korean welfare regime and specify the main characteristics of that regime. Secondly, I present three policy reform options: (1) reform of the formal political institutions such as electoral system and government type; (2) restructuring of the composition of government expenditure structure; and (3) reduction of the informal employment. These three policy reform options are related to the alteration of socioeconomic coalitions and the changes of the political and economic institutions. Instead of concluding remarks, I finally suggest two debate topics to the round table discussion.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.55
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• pp.205-230
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• 2003

This article examines the continuity and change of Korean welfare regime during 1990s. Democracy, globalization and the financial crisis changed the landscape of Korean society as a whole and provided a catalyst for the change of the Korean welfare regime. In order to show how and what changed in Korean welfare regime, this study concentrates on the transformations of income maintenance programmes and social welfare services. The changed aspects are as follow: (1) The ratio of social expenditure to GDP has increased during 1990s and now stood at ten percent level. (2)Rather than backing up the company welfare, government strove to build and expand income maintenance devices for all citizens. (3) The poverty and inequality reduction effects of income maintenance programs are very weak in early 1990s, but they are gradually getting stronger impact on poverty and inequality. But, there are also continuance. (1) In spite of the relative development of income maintenance programs, social welfare services are still poorly designed as before. (2) The expenditure level of social welfare services shows sharp contrast to income maintenance programs and lagged behind the other OECD countries. (3) The expansion of social service sector employment are also not so salient. In 2002, social service employment is only at close to 2.5 per cent of the total employment. Accordingly, korean welfare regime is now characterized by a model which is to curb poverty and inequality by engaging in direct government provision of income maintenance programs, but refrain from expanding social service by relying on net welfare which encourage the provision of services within the family. A implication of our analysis is that the expansion of social welfare Korea saw after 1997 was not really an regime shift. According to the arguments of Peter Hall, first and second order changes in policy do not automatically lead to third order changes which imply regime shift. Policy changes which occurred during 1990s was not accompanied by a shift in policy paradigms. Family dependency in welfare is not yet changed.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.65 no.2
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• pp.179-201
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• 2013

Since the 1960s, Korean welfare regime has been characterized by developmental welfare regime, of which invisible welfare programs like relation-based welfare are one of core elements. Developmental welfare regime of Korea has been dismantled after 1990s by the internal and external pressures. Focusing on the declines of relation-based welfare, this study examines the dismantle of developmental welfare regime of Korea. Since the late-1990s, the roles of inter-family income transfer and public income transfer are significant changed in terms of each share of total household income and each contribution of poverty alleviation. In other words, the role of public welfare has been growing while that of relation-based welfare has been decreased in the last twenty years. For the sake of a successful welfare regime transition in Korea, redistributional function of public welfare is quite important, but the development of reciprocal social economy and open community are also needed. Because, at this time and in this place, traditional welfare state building strategy is not proper in many aspects. However, it is impossible to achieve the development of reciprocal open community by restoration of relation-based welfare which has been already declined. This study regards enlargement of social economy or third sector as a development of reciprocal open community, and insists that cooperatives are especially worthy of notice.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.163-198
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• 2018

This study analyzed the change of the Korean welfare regime during the conservative government. It is clear that the welfare expanded during the conservative government, but this expansion was the process of realizing the constraint of expansion that reduces future welfare expenditure in Korea. In addition, as the public welfare centered on social insurance expanded after 10 years of liberal government, the backward selectivity of the Korean welfare regime strengthened in the conservative administration. Expanding social insurance itself does not reinforce the backward selectivity of the Korean welfare regime. However, the industrial structure created by the export-led growth system has intensified the fragmentation of the labor market, and expanding social insurance designed based on regular workers under these conditions has forced the backward selectivity of the social security system. It is for this reason that the backward selectivity has been reinforced during the conservative government.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.403-442
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• 2010

This study aims to configurate the contents of social policy strategies of European welfare states in the postindustrial society. The social policy strategy of the socialdemocratic regime consists of 'maintenance of statecentrism' and 'inclusion'. The contents of social policy strategy of the liberal regime are 'expansion of market forces' and 'increase of individual' self-responsibility'. The conservative regime adheres to the 'protection of male breadwinner; and 'income maintenance programs'. Due to these social policy strategies, the conservative regime has very high rate of unemployment. In the liberal regime, the high rate of poverty exists. In contrast, the socialdemocratic regime has low rates of unemployment and poverty and shows best social outcomes among the welfare regimes.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.5-27
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• 2010

The objective of this study is to examine the dicourse of East Asian Welfare Models and its applicability to explain the development of the Korean Welfare State(regime). The Confucianist Welfare State, representing East Asian Welfare Models has limitations in explaining the current features and dynamics of east asian welfare states. Compared to the western and northern european welfare states, the Welfare State(Regime) of Korea, one of the east asian countries show the clear differences in terms of its origin, the background of formulation, the orientation of the policy and the actors. Thus, a new approach to examine the East Asian Welfare Model is needed. As a theoretical framework, the origin and the growth of the Korean Welfare State(Regime) can be understood and explained in the boundary of concept and the theoretical framework of the Authoritative Developmental State; Historically, the democratization of the 1980s and the financial crisis of the end of 1990s in Korea contributed to the growth of the welfare policies and institutions in Korea. Japan, Taiwan and other east asian counties, such as Hong Kong and Singapore have many similarities with Korea in terms of welfare policies and institutions. Comparative studies of these countries can create significant and useful results to develop a new concept and model of East Asian Welfare States. Case studies and active academic exchanges among welfare state researchers in these east asian countries are very important to develop a new concept of East Asian Welfare State Models.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.245-269
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• 2005

This paper purports to evaluate the public assistance programme of Korea in comparison with those of member states of the European Union, using the concept of poverty regime as a heuristic device. For this purpose, chapter two discusses notions of welfare-state regime (Esping-Andersen, 1990) and poverty regime(Sainsbury and Morissen, 2002). Chapter three examines poverty and income distribution in Korea and the member states of the EU, and chapter four compares and analyses the public assistance programme of those countries, using hierarchical cluster analysis. It claims that the 'welfare paradox' of $L{\empty}delmel$ (1997) is not based on evidence, and duly concludes that the overall level of welfare effort such as welfare expenditure is a main determinant for the development of public assistance programmes.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.28
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• pp.135-164
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• 1996

• 한국사회복지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.387-411
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• 2005

The purpose of this article is to analyse the expenditure structure of the welfare mix; in order to grasp the holistic feature of the Korean social welfare. Most of all, the article attempts to elaborate the estimation methods of social welfare expenditure by including the components from which has been excluded so far - indirect tax expenditure of the government, nursery payments of households, life insurance pay-outs for survivors, inter-household private income transfers and the value of caring work of the family. In so doing, the article estimates that the total social welfare expenditure including state, enterprise, market, NPOs and family reached at 24.7% of GDP in 2000, which is approximately 2.5 times more than public social welfare expenditure. It implies that non-state, private sectors dominates the structure of social welfare provisions in Korea. In addition, based on the analyses of the expenditure structure, the article defines the main feature of Korea's welfare mix as the 'mixed structure of the welfare mix dominated by the protective family', or 'expanded public sector, relatively limited market, and protective family'. Such a family-dominated welfare mix structure in Korea indicates that the fundamental source of solidarity of the Korean social welfare system is family and, therefore, the welfare regime of Korea can be classified as 'Conservative'.