KJC Korea
Journal Central

The priority setting based on social consensus related to the financial substantiality and benefits range of the National Health Insurance is social not discussed as before. This Study dealt with a Korean model of the priority setting based on social consensus in health care. Related to the NHI, this study focused on the objects, levels and mechanism of the priority setting in health care as well as the recent international discussions on this theme. The particular criteria after the principle based on the social consensus can acquire the legitimation for the decision of the expanding benefit catalogue of the NHI. The establishment of the priority setting based on social consensus leads the restructuralization of the present decision-making framework of the NHI for the purpose of the national participation.

The welfare state has been growing and spread all over the world since the end of the 19th century. The constitutional law and various conception of the equalities and justices have contributed to this development. The social rights have been recognized as a core of the human rights. The participatory democracy has been advocated. The principle of the general election was followed by the welfare politics. The idea of the equality was made sensitive in the welfare production. Justices should be realized in various fields and dimensions. As a result of theses development the range of the social risks has been enlarged. And the social risks came to have new contents. The growth of the welfare states during the 50s and 60s has been enhanced by the political, economic and international environments. The welfare states experienced the new shaping. That is; The welfare production is no more subordinate to the economic order, but is formed as a self-establishing system and situated in the political structure. That means that the welfare states are now irreversible. But this brought the political burden in the sense that the welfare production developed to the forum of conflicting interests on the base of the various norms as well as ideas. This burden gave new tasks to present the core criteria in the age of the retrenchment.

Among the diverse changes our society is undergoing today, the rapid increase in the number of old population is producing many different types of social problems. Specifically, as the society transitions from an aging society into an aged society, job creation for the elderly has emerged as an important social issue. From the perspective of elderly individuals, job creation for the elderly provides opportunity for character development, self realization through work, and income‐generating labor that establishes the foundation for a life with dignity. From the perspective of the society, the elderly can maintain mental and physical health through participating in economic activities of the society and communicating with the younger generation, and enjoy their position as fully functioning members of the society through their labor. Job creation for the elderly, therefore, can become a foundation upon which many aspects of individual and social health can be secured. Legislators can mobilize various means to create jobs for the elderly. There are significant parts of the mandatory retirement system currently stuck in the existing framework that can be improved and, going beyond merely creating jobs for corporations, employment in the public sector can also be created through various legislative efforts. At the same time, it cannot be denied that, due to the existence of socio structural and economic reasons that block an unlimited number of jobs from being created, there are difficulties in deriving any revolutionary plan in the midst of rapidly changing times. Internationalization or globalization has become yet another challenge in our reality, in which early retirement has long ago become common place and the changes in the economic structure of which make the traditional mandatory retirement system difficult to maintain. The State has a primary mandate to fulfill its task of legislating policies that create jobs, but it is surrounded by many obstacles. Nevertheless, legislators have to make continuous efforts to bring about improvements in the mandatory retirement system, gradual reform of the pension system, cultivation of and support for social enterprise, and creation of various suitable jobs for the elderly.

This study is to examine the differences in job sequences of the working poor which are defined as present labor market status: the employed poor, the economically active poor, and the economically inactive poor. Thus I utilized the KLIPS(Korea Labor and Income Panel Study), and analyzed it by event sequence analysis. In addition, I carried out the Regression and the ANOVA to compare the job sequences according to the working poor’s definitions. These results are as follow. First, the total years of working, and the number of gaps are statistically significant in the case of the male working poor. Second, the total years of working, the number of gaps, and the number of jobs are statistically significant in the case of the female working poor. That means that the employed poor’s job sequences are statistically distinguished from the others. These results mean the employed poor have been working more, and have had more stability than the others. these results can give an implication in the adjustment of the workfare program in Korea.

This study aims at statistically evaluating applicability of welfare status theory of welfare politics in the Korean context, by using Korea Welfare Panel Survey of 2006. Welfare status theory is one of the representative approach of non-class political view of welfare politics. It is composed of 3 dimensions of welfare-related interests, that is, status as welfare beneficiary, status as welfare taxpayer, and status as welfare service provider. This study explores the path structure of welfare political variables, by analysing confirmative path model which is based on the theoretical implications from the welfare status theory. Analytical results of the study are to be summarized as follows. Firstly, total model fit is acceptable, which means the analyzed model adequately reflects the data. Secondly, independent variables such as age, gender, education level, disability level are all statistically significant and theoretically plausible. Thirdly, public employment and public assistance benefit level are also statistically and theoretically acceptable, which confirms the validity of theory of welfare status. Although the variable of income level is not significant and reveals the opposite sign of coefficient, we can conclude that welfare-status-based politics exists and is working in Korean context, too.

This study examined the factors affecting service utilization of elderly home and community care among long term care services recipients during long term care insurance pilot project period in Korea. Help-seeking Behavior model by Andersen and Newman(1973) developed and MI-CHOICE system were used to analyze the factors affecting their utilization home and community care service among 1,939 long term care services recipients. Frequency and Decision Tree Regression analysis on SPSS 13.0 used. Analyses show strong significant factor is service preference (predisposing factors), and then significant factors are enabling factors such as co-residence type, household income. According to this results, need factors such as cognition disorder, problem behavior, ADL and IADL disabilities are affecting utilization behavior of elderly residential care services. But there are different needs by different service. These findings provide implications and suggestions about how long term care service system would be settled in Korea. And these finding provide information about target-efficient long term care continuum system to policy makers and helping professionals.

In recent years, several articles which constitute the debate called 'Takegawa-Tada debate' over a methodology of the comparative study on East Asian welfare states have been published. The debate has an implication as a contact point of some approaches of the study on welfare state in Japan. This paper, firstly, investigates the genealogy of the studies on welfare state in Japan, and examines the content of two approaches called `stage-oriented approach` and `type-oriented approach`. Secondly, the paper explores the study on East Asian welfare states as a contact point of the two approaches and clarifies the position of 'Takegawa-Tada debate'. Through the above analysis, the purpose of this paper is to explore a methodological approach for the comparative study on East Asian welfare states.

In oder to examine the caregivers' situation in regard to their working conditions as well as their economic dependence, twelve caregivers and two executive officers of caregivers' associations were thoroughly interviewed for this study. The analysis of the interviews reveals that caregivers are exposed to bad working and health conditions. Due to the ceaseless work with their patients, caregivers are not sufficiently protected from diseases such as diseases affecting the muscular skeletal system, eye diseases (e.g. xerophthalmia) and contagious infections of their patients (e.g. skin diseases, tubercle). Their own medical treatment has to be paid by the caregivers themselves. The application of the industrial accident compensation insurance for caregivers ist therefore urgently needed. The interviewed caregivers work in hospital and sanatoriums. Regarding their payment, some were directly paid by the patients while others were paid by the hospital/sanatorium or by the caregivers' associations. Futhermore, the interviews show that caregivers did not employ any other persons. These results of the study comply with article 125 para. 1 no. 1 and 2 of the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act (Special case for persons in special types of employment) which provides: "1. They should routinely provide the business or workplace with labor service necessary for the operation thereof, be paid for such service and live on such pay; and 2. They should not use other persons to provide the labor service". The Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance could be applicable for caregivers in the following way: As a compulsory insurance scheme; caregivers and the medical institutions (hospital/sanatorium) each pay 50 % of the premium costs; in oder to determine the premium costs, the average monthly income depending on the type of working conditions and hours - e.g. a 24-hours-6-day per week type or shiftwork - have to be the basis.