KJC Korea
Journal Central

This study is conducted to identify the role of small non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the policy stream of national mental healthcare systems for North Korean (NK) defectors. To reach this goal, a case regarding national mental healthcare policy for NK defectors set first on February 2006 was analyzed by Kingdon’s policy framework and the activities of small NGOs who played important roles at that time were specially described in detail. As a result, the mental healthcare policymaking for NK defectors could be accounted for joining three separate streams which worked as a part of the agenda-setting and alternative-specification process: problems, policies, and politics. In this policymaking process, small NGOs which were founded from voluntary activities played an active role in reframing problems, helping set the agenda by strategic forum, joining policy community by coalition, and specifying innovative alternatives, so we concluded that they acted as a policy entrepreneur.

Despite overall health improvement over a few decades, health inequalities seem to be worsening, which calls for alternative health policies to consider health equity as their major agenda. However, yet much has been not discussed over justification of alleviating health inequalities, principles in program/policy planning, and modalities for delivery. Health equity policies are defined as all policies and programs to be implemented for preventing, alleviating and eliminating health inequalities. They are required for practical as well as normative reasons. Conventional health programs solely cannot tackle health inequalities and the followings are required; 1) healthy public policies and inter-sectoral cooperation; 2) multi-level approach; 3) area-based strategies; 4) life-course approach ; 5) consideration for participation, empowerment, and social contexts; 6) monitoring, management, and evaluation of policies and programs through an equity lense. Further research and policy/programs for health equity should be followed in Korea. In addition, key principles and appropriate approach based on the best available evidence should be applied in planning and implementing policies and programs.

In order to protect workers’ health it is needed to improve the level of occupational safety and health. The level of workplace safety and health can be improved through a variety of activities of occupational safety and health. Workplace safety and health activities can be divided into two categories such as response to the legal and regulatory activities and economically rational activities for profit making. Author investigated which activities have the greatest effect on awareness of workplace safety and health levels and workplace risk level. Materials utilized for this study was data from 2009 Occupational Safety and Health Trend Survey conducted by Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute. Using factor analysis the various activities of workplace safety and health were classified into five sub categories such as employer’s general safety and health management activities, employee health-related activities, management of chemicals, machinery protection and personal protective equipment management, and information delivery and communication. All of the activities of safety and health has had a significant impact on perceived level of workplace safety and health. Among five categories of activities, the employer’s general health and safety management showed the largest impact. Whereas awareness of risk was influenced by only activity of personal protection equipment and hazard machinery at 5% significance level. After all perceived level of health and safety and risk awareness are recognized differently by safety and health managers in workplace. This study has some limitation. Cross sectional survey data cannot be interpreted as causal relationship and surveyed activities about workplace safety and health cannot cover all kinds of activities.

This article seeks to devise a deductive theoretical framework to understand diversity of welfare state building based on what would be called the institutional power resources model. In this model, the standard power‐resources theory was combined with institutions that affect the policy preferences of key actors in welfare politics: organized labor, employers, and politicians. The theoretical framework is grounded in literature on corporatism, electoral engineering, and VoC (varieties ofcapitalism). This model strongly suggests that Korea has been endowed with the least favorable institutional configuration for welfare state development, despite socioeconomic structural changes typically associated with it, such as industrialization, mocratization, and labor movement.

This article is expected to contribute to theorizing Korean welfare state in the post-democratization period. Influenced by historical institutionalism, the article takes the perspective of the ‘incremental change of institution.’ This work focuses on the main features of Korea’s path to a small welfare state rather than a detailed description of it. Theorization of Korea’s welfare state development during the post-democratization period has remained strongly contested. The examination of the main features of Korea’s welfare state development, relying on the framework of the incremental change of institution, demonstrates that welfare change has resulted from a complex process of contention and compromise among relevant players such as welfare reformers and reform-opponents. Korea’s persistent welfare orientation, a strong orientation of small public spending, has survived. This has strengthened Korea’s path to a small welfare state.

We investigate the effect of corporate philanthropy on social performance using a time-lagged mediating model of economic performance. In this paper, we use the monetary donation and economic performance data of the companies which were nominated as an economic justice company among Korean listed companies in 2010. The results show that the more the ratio of monetary donation, the higher are the social performance, corporate value, and return on sales. We also find a partial mediating effect of economic performance between the ratio of monetary donation and social performance. Monetary donation is a multi-functional corporate philanthropy to fulfill diverse stakeholders’ interests.

The purpose of the study is to make clear the origin and the formation process of the Chinese Family Planning Policy(Jihuashengyu). The study attempts to explain why the policy formation took a long time, around 25 years from 1956 to 1979. It could be explained that the traditional culture relating to the family and women resist the new family planning policy aimed to the drastic birth control. The data adopted primarily in this paper includes the evidences gathering from the direct interview to a social scientist who played an important role in the policy making process in the late 1970s as well as the testimonies of the Chinese political leaders which are suggested by the western journalists. China’s first birth control campaign was not launched until late in 1956. It was the response to the result of the 1953 Census of China by which the rapid increase of the population and the over population problem ware officially apparent. From that time the birth control campaign had continued to proceed until the late 1970s, when the program was to be established as the legal institution. The Communist Authorities adopted the following three strategies to proceed the program gradually. The first one was the permeation of the idea of the family planning into the rural community mainly through the People’s Commune. Secondly, the mass educational approaches and the organization of the women was adopted. The group study activities by the women for the Mao’s thought were contributed to the program establishment and to widespread the idea. Lastly, the mass media, like People’s Daily was mobilized to persuade the people to accept and practice the family planning.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the effectiveness of various social interventions that aim to promote self-sufficiency of North Korean refugees. The new Resettlement Assistance Act for North Korean defectors has augmented social intervention component and financial incentives that are devised to strengthen North Korean defectors’ human capital. Those include educational services such as free vocational training programs and job preparation & job placement services, and the financial reward system with a reward for completion of vocational training, obtaining job related licences and maintaining jobs over an extended period of time. The findings of this study indicated that vocational training did not exert any significant effect on employment but acquisition of a vocational license does contribute to employment and income level. An incentive for job retention has a close relation with employment and getting off the welfare system but no association with income level. Higher education in Korea did not seem to lead to an employment or a higher income. It needs to be explored in the future research whether the result is such because the years in education prevented those in school from income generating activities or investment in education does not contribute to employability of the participants. Policy and practice implications of the findings were discussed.

Issues related to paid work and care are of global importance, reflecting the double pressures of population aging and efforts to increase labour market participation of women and older population. The study examines elder care issues of employed caregivers in order to assist work-family balance through the whole family life cycle, criticizing current work-family balance policies focused on child care and long-term care policies centered around care recipients rather than caregivers. Most of all, present elder care policies have a lot of limits such as low level of financial payments and insufficient supports for employment of caregivers. Employed caregivers of older people experience tensions between work and care making work related adjustments in spite of economic and social disadvantages. For resolving the problems of employed family caregivers of the elderly, several suggestions are made as follows: addressing caregiver needs by offering choice and control over the caring responsibility, implementing work-family balance policies on a family life cycle base, and establishing diverse ways of support for family caregivers including social security credits, cash benefits, respite service, family leaves, and facility and in home services.

OECD was originated from cooperation of advanced democratic countries and have had the highest value on the efficiency and sustainability of the economy. The OECD’s interest, celebrating its 50th Anniversary, is moving further toward improving people’s well-being, measuring people’s lives with proper tool and having interest in development in emerging and underdeveloped countries. It is trials to make globalization work positively, and to conduct people-centered development; they are goals of nations’ social policies. Globalization increased global interdependence among countries, which needs global level approach and cooperation to solve not only global issues but also national policy issues. While there are characteristic changes in the OECD policies, Korean social policy needs to participate in the global policy dialogue in the international organizations and should develop with Global Social Policies in parallel. In addition, it is also required to review “policy transfer” theoretically and systematically, and the role of policy makers.