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What Kind of Welfare State has Korea Grown up in?

  • Korea Social Policy Review
  • Abbr : KSPR
  • 2020, 27(1), pp.153-185
  • DOI : 10.17000/kspr.27.1.202003.153
  • Publisher : Korean Association of Social Policy
  • Research Area : Social Science > Sociology > Medical / Welfare / Social policy
  • Received : January 27, 2020
  • Accepted : March 14, 2020
  • Published : March 31, 2020

Sinsil Han 1

1국민연금연구원

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Since IMF crisis, Korea's welfare system has been on a tremendous growth path both in terms of quantity and quality. In particular, there are few differences on the premise that Korea has been the welfare state in terms of quantity. By measuring and assessing the nature of the Korean welfare state in terms of quality, it is time to check the current state of Korea as a welfare state and examine the future direction of development. In response, the current Korean social welfare state landscape was compared and analyzed with advanced welfare countries by utilizing a fuzzy set ideal type analysis that applied the framework for the classification of the welfare regime in Esping-Andersen, decommodification, stratification, and defamiliarization. As a result, Korea has a weak overall national welfare and a selective yet residual institutional context, showing hige level of residual and stratification. Against this backdrop of growth in Korea's welfare state, this aticle suggests the absence of a welfare state strategy. In other words, it was due to the growth-first and minimalist social-policy paradigms. As a result, despite korea have being been nearly two decades of the age of maturity, Korea has grown into a welfare state with very different degrees of development by institutions. That is why, Korea needs a welfare state strategy to be put first in the process of managing government policies.

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