• 한국사회정책
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.1-24
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• 2016

This paper examines whether the pension systems of the western countries which was traditionally classified into the Beveridgean and Bismarckian pension regime will converge after recent pension reforms in the financial sustainability and adequacy perspective by comparing between UK, Germany and Sweden. As a result of pension reforms for the last 20 years, the gap between the Beveridgean and Bismarckian pension regime will be likely to decrease and, in particular, the tendency to convergency in adequacy is found. Even though it is not jumped to a conclusion that public pension expenditure between the three countries is likely to converge, the tendency to convergency in financial sustainability is also found if the difference of demographic aging between countries is considered. The paper suggests that it is necessary to make agreement between the range of pension expenditure and replacement ratio that western countries suggest in pension debate in Korea, instead of hitherto useless controversy between financial sustainability and adequacy.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.119-147
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• 2012

This paper aims to explore whether the trilemma of welfare states has been a valid argument about the recent change of welfare states. Based on fuzzy-set ideal type analysis of data from seventeen OECD countries, it examines that welfare states have achieved three core policy objectives -income equality, employment growth and fiscal discipline- in the service economy during the period between 1981 and 2010. The evidence presented in this paper does not support the trilemma of the service economy where only two goals can be pursued successfully at one time, at a cost of the other remained goal. The trilemma has been effective only to the countries in liberal welfare regime where employment growth and fiscal discipline has been achieved at a cost of higher levels of income equality. However, conservative welfare-state regimes have experienced the deterioration of income equality and fiscal restraint after the mid 1980s and it seems that they have diverged into various models. In the countries of the social democratic welfare regime, the goals of equality and employment have been achieved simultaneously together with fiscal discipline since the early 2000s. While they are classified as the perfect model in the research, Southern European welfare states including Greece and Italy, classified as 'the crisis model', have not performed well in all the three aspects. On the evidence presented in this paper, it can be said that the trilemma of welfare states in the service economy is not effective to explain the policy goals of welfare state as well as the result of redistributive politics in the service economy.

• East European & Balkan Studies
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• v.36
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• pp.247-268
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• 2013

The ever-increasing informal economy in post-socialist Eastern Europe forces one to wonder about what transition to post-socialism is for and about. Informal economy, which refers to unregistered work and services to was rampant in the socialist period across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. It was considered as a pathological phenomenon of the socialist system and exposing the rigidity and inefficiency of the command economy amongst the socialist regimes. The ordinary people of the Eastern bloc had to resort to all sorts of informal channels to get hold of goods and services constantly in short supply, especially at the last decade of the really existing socialism. However, it is ironical to observe the same old informal economy, considered pathological, even more thriving in the new era of post-socialism in Eastern Europe. After all, the system has changed into the capitalism, the antipode to socialism. It should be mentioned that the function of informal economy is seen to be even more intensified, from a means to make living better in the socialist time to a means for survival and sustenance in the post-socialist period. It follows from the socialist experience that the deficiency of the ruling system could not be indefinitely borne out. Real remedies should be sought out before it will be too late.

• 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.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.185-214
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• 2012

After the introduction of the three welfare regimes by Esping-Andersen, discussion on 'other' types of welfare regimes was facilitated and the scholarly focus on East Asian economic development gradually shifted to the East Asian welfare states discussion from the late 1990s. Literature on East Asian welfare states increased our understanding on the characteristics of not only the East Asian welfare state as a whole but also of each country in the region. However, compared the attention given to developing variables and empirical studies on the East Asian welfare state, less attention has been given to the concept of East Asian welfare states. Recognizing the limitation in developing comparable variables without a concept analysis of the East Asian welfare states, this study highlights the importance of conceptualization and concept analysis in comparative social policy studies. This paper first discusses on the concepts, conceptualization and on the use of set theory in comparative social policy research. Next, the study argues the validity of 'functional equivalence' in the East Asian welfare state studies and critically reviews the existing literature. Lastly, this paper suggests how the concept of functional equivalence can be successfully employed for the East Asian welfare states studies with a concept analysis and by applying a set theory including the fuzzy set theory.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.151-178
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• 2014

Highly Differentiated and segmented social insurance scheme in Taiwan shows its salient dimension of stratification, which has been considered as a general feature of conservative welfare regime. However, compared to Western conservative welfare states, Taiwan's social insurance scheme shows a distinct feature. First, Taiwan's social insurance scheme has offered a full coverage for various benefits. Secondly, Labor Insurance and Government employees' Insurance reveal distinct features of stratification. Labor Insurance has developed a universalistic system based on status equality and cross-class solidarity of working classes while Government employees' Insurance includes a myriad of occupational- and status-based programs. This article aims to articulate the historical origin of Taiwan's unique social insurance scheme and explains it as an unintended result of state's political intervention and various interests of each insured groups, especially, politically, economically, and ethnically conflicting identities of government employees and working classes.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.68 no.2
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• pp.79-105
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• 2016

This study aimed to understand the pre-capitalistic distributional system in association with politics and economics by examining the distributional system between 1876 (the opening of a port era) and 1910. The study revealed that the distributional system reflected the political and economic characteristics and changes of the pre-capitalistic society. The examination indicated the following implications and questions. First, we need a new narrative of Chosun's distributional system before the period of Japanese occupation. Chosun's distributional system can be identified as a self sufficient system (Hwan-gok). Second, most social welfare literature discuss private self sufficient system such as Gye or Hwang-Yak as the distributional system in the pre-modern Chosun; however, this does not accurately explain the system of Chosun society. Implication of such findings are discussed.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.231-252
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• 2005

The changing Agenda of the family policy is to be influenced by many factors. The structural change of population and aging problem in modern society are generally included in main factors which produce political needs. Therefore, migrant family is recognized as a alternative which is to resolve the socioeconomic problems of aging industrial societies. In Germany, Gerhard Schroeder who leads the SPD governs since 1998. The Schroeder's new conception of welfare policy is known as the third way("neue Mitte") which the social economic structure intends to neo-liberalistic trend. The concern on the welfare policy for the migrant families has grown recently in neo-liberalistic age, but research on german welfare policy for migrant families is very limited in quantity and Depth. The main purpose of this study is to examine how the welfare policy for the migrant families of Schroeder-government has been developed in Germany. And this paper evaluates the results of transforming policy. Based on this evaluation, this paper attempts to be manifest the problem of korean family policy for the migrant population and to find out implications of german model.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.253-282
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• 2004

The study is to examine the actual conditions and problems of educational welfare which is a part of social welfare and to offer its future directions and things to do. First of all, education has been considered to be part of social welfare in developed countries for a long time and it has been used the same as school educational welfare. These days Korea is confronted with increasing needs of educational welfare caused by emphasis of manpower, appearance of new poor class after IMF, handing down poverty to their children, absence of public education and educational fever, stress of life long learning and extending needs of students' social welfare service. In advanced countries compared to Korea, people perceive education as an equal opportunity. To reach this thesis, various efforts have been making in terms of manpower development such as reform of related laws, financial and official support, offering of parental skills and protecting children for the disadvantaged, dispatching school social workers and overall life improvement. The subjects and age of educational welfare are also diverse ranging from poor families and pre school children to general public and adults. On the other hand, Korea lacks related laws and financial support that are supposed to enforce educational welfare systematically. Also integrated and professional services are not often available due to the lack of cooperation between related agencies. Therefore, government's role and responsibility should be defined clearly in the future directions of educational welfare in Korea. For this, it is needed to establish related laws and build a concrete financial and executive interrelationship. Also every person should be a target of educational welfare putting priorities on the disadvantaged. A lot of efforts should be made to achieve things mentioned above. Multi-dimensional approach intertwined with education, welfare and labour, establishment of cooperation system between related agencies, reinforcement of life long learning, extension of free education including infants and toddlers, and offering financial support to the poor are a few among these efforts. Finally, institutionalization of school social welfare and improvement school facilities are strongly recommended to get to the right track of educational welfare.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.261-304
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• 2013

This article is aiming intensively to analyze the polarizing tendency of labour market and social integration. The polarization of labour market is being regarded as one of the hottest issues not less important than those problems of economic growth, employment, income distribution and national security etc. in the national policy. In this article, we will first follow up the important phenomena of labour market polarization and the background as well as its consequence. Especially, it asks if the present labour policy in the new government which is now being concentrated on the improvement of employment rate(from the present 63% to the 70% in the future) could deserve to diminish the polarization of labour market in korea. At one side, this article makes the special attention on the diversifying tendency of labour market and the various phenomena of fragmentation and segmentation in the labour market according to the forms and types of employment and according to the employee's status as much as the company's size. At the other side, it emphasizes that to overcome the polarization of labour market should require the wide reform from the legal measure to the improvement of the wage system, and the qualification system and the social investment as well as the human resource development. Furthermore, this article stresses the importance of integrative approach between the active market policy and the social policy instead of choosing each policy option, seperatively.