• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.51-72
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• 2005

The purpose of this article is to empirically testify three hypotheses on the relation between married women's employment and the allocation of unpaid domestic work within households - i.e., adaptive partnership (AP), dual burden (DB) and lagged adaptation (LA) models. The AP hypothesis assumes that, when wives are employed, husbands spend more time doing housework in order to compensate for their wives' increased responsibility. The DB model, by contrast, indicates that, even if married women are employed, their burden on domestic work does not decrease. In this case, therefore, the dual burden of married women can be expected. Between these two opposite views, the third, alternative hypothesis has been suggested recently. The LA model argues that the behaviours of households are adaptive to the changing environments but over a period of many years and even across generations. The article has analysed the total work time as well as unpaid domestic work time to testify these three hypotheses, utilising 1999 Time Use Survey data of the National Statistical Office. The research results can be summarised as follows. First, married working women worked 100 minutes more than their male spouses. Second, the average domestic work time of married men, 23-25 minutes per day, was no more than 5-10% of that of women. Third, the effects of age and women's employment were not statistically significant in multiple regression models, which means that the DB hypothesis explains the situation of married working women in Korea. Based on these findings, the article suggested the expansion of the public social service system to mitigate the dual burden of married working women, the introduction of compensatory credit for caring work, and the directions of further empirical research using the time use survey data.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.5-30
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• 2005

Globalization has conflicting effects on pharmaceutical policies. A change into a 'populist competitive nation' due to globalization strengthens policies to reduce drug manufacturing costs while the WTO's TRIPS Agreement that is affected by multinational pharmaceutical companies increases drug manufacturing costs by bolstering the patent rights on new drugs. Currently, the independency of populist nations' policies to reduce drug manufacturing cost is being compromised because multinational organizations(such as the European Union) which represents the interests of the multinational pharmaceutical companies put restrictions on the pharmaceutical policies of populist nations for purposes of promoting the industrial goals of the multinational companies. Korea is no exception. Up until the late 1990s, the main feature of the pharmaceutical policies in Korea was keeping the drug price at the cost level based on a growth-driven ideology, and this was Korea's unique policy tools as a developing nation. However, the increase in the power of multinational pharmaceutical companies currently infringes on the independency of Korea's pharmaceutical policies. Expensive imported drugs were originally covered by the national health insurance plan, but starting from 1999 such drugs began to be covered by the plan. After separation of medical and pharmaceutical services, the use of expensive drugs was increased, and the Korean government planned to introduce the reference price policy in order to contain the cost of the national health insurance plan. However, due to pressures from the U.S. government as well as multinational pharmaceutical companies, implementation of the policy has been postponed. In addition, due to a pressure from the U.S. government, a working group was created which would affect the health care policy of the Korean government. Discussions so far on globalization was about whether the change into populist competitive nations due to globalization resulted in the reduction of welfare spending. However, this study shows not only the reduction of health care cost through policies to reduce drug manufacturing costs but increase in welfare spending by raising the strengths of multinational pharmaceutical companies that are for-profit providers of welfare service. While focusing on the contradictory effects of globalization on pharmaceutical policies of a nation, this study looked at how these conflicting effects end up promoting the interests of multinational pharmaceutical companies by examining the Korean case.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.39-48
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• 2010

Recreation forests are in the spotlight as the place for personality development, mind and body comfort, companionship, and environment education in forests and valleys. Visitors to recreation forests have been on the increase along with booming in recreation forest building since 1988. Recreation forests are being categorized according to some features such as regional and environmental condition. Recreation forests, however, have not met the expectations of some visitors who want to take a rest with calmness due to the influence of the 5-day-work-week system, increasing interest in rest, leisure, and well-being, and users converge during weekends, summer, and the tourist season. In order to improve visitors' satisfaction efficiently, this study surveyed the level of satisfaction in each cluster based on the precedent study which had classified 85 national or public recreation forests in Korea into clusters. Questionnaires were distributed properly to each cluster and, of the 1,132 questionnaires collected, 1,015 were valid and used for analysis. Reliability of questionnaires and statistical validity of the model were verified. As a result, there are meaningful differences in the ranking of independent variables which affect the level of satisfaction according to clusters. Variables in rest and fatigue recovery have the strongest influence on the level of satisfaction in the clusters of potential factor, internal activation factor, and mixed potential capacity factor. In the use performance and visiting condition factor cluster, appropriateness of visit cost is most influential and, in the education cluster, connectivity with tourist attractions around it is most affective. These results can provide priority in services and maintenance of recreation forests for improving the level of satisfaction and differentiate the distribution of resources according to clusters.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.53
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• pp.129-153
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• 2003

This study examines the socio-economic impacts of recent welfare reform in the United States. Based on the neo-conservative critique to the traditional public assistance system for low-income families, the 1996 welfare reform has given greater emphases on reducing welfare dependency and increasing work effort and self-sufficiency among welfare recipients. In particular, the welfare reform legislation instituted 60-month lifetime limits on cash assistance, expanded mandatory work requirements, and placed financial penalties for noncompliance. With the well-timed economic boom in the second half of the 1990s, the welfare reform seems to achieve considerable progress; welfare caseload has declined sharply to reach less than 50% of its 1994 peak, single mothers' labor force participation has increased substantially, and child poverty has decreased. In spite of these good signals, the welfare reform also has several potential problems. Many welfare leavers participate in the labor market, but not all (or most) of them. The economic well being of working welfare leavers did not increased significantly, because earnings increase was canceled out by parallel decrease in welfare benefits. Furthermore, most of working welfare leavers are employed in jobs with poor employment stability and low wages, making them highly vulnerable to frequent layoff, long-time joblessness, persistent poverty, and welfare recidivism. Another serious problem of the welfare reform is that a substantial number of welfare recipients are faced with extreme difficulties in finding jobs, because they have severe barriers to employment. The new welfare system with 5-year time limit can severely threaten the livelihoods of these people. The welfare reform presupposes that welfare recipients can achieve self-reliance by increasing their labor market activities. However, empirical evidences suggest that many people are unable to respond to the new, work-oriented welfare strategy. It may be a very difficult task to achieve both objectives of the welfare reform((1) providing adequate income security for low-income families and (2) promoting self-sufficiency) at the same time, because sometimes they are conflicting each other. With this in mind, a possible solution can be to distinguish welfare recipients into "(Very)-Hard-to-Employ" group and "(Relatively)-Ready-to-Work" group, based on elaborate examinations of a wide range of personal conditions. For the former group, the primary objective of welfare policies should be the first one(providing income security). For the "Ready-to-Work" group, follow-up services to promote job retention and advancement, as well as skill-training and job-search services, are very important. The U. S. experiences of the welfare reform provide some useful implications for newly developing Korean public assistance policies for the able-bodied low-income population.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.53
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• pp.285-310
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• 2003

As National Pension Scheme for all nation complete in 1999 through expanding application in cities, the public pension including Public Occupational Pension became main axis of old-age income maintenance. After 4years since then, now, it is only half of total National Pension insured persons who have been qualified to receive pension through participate and contribution. The other half of National Pension insured is left the excluded from public pension. This paper is intended to identify scale and characteristics of the excluded from public pension and to analysis its cause, and to explore policy measures for solving the excluded's problem. for current recipients over 60 years old generation, the its excluded's scale is no less than 86% of the old over 60 years. The probability of getting in the excluded is high in case of old elderly and female for current elderly generation. For future recipients 18-59 years working generation, the its excluded's scale is no less than 61% of the 18-59 years total population. The probability of getting in the excluded is high in case of 18-29 years and female for current working generation. As logistic regression analysis determinant factor of paying or not pension contribution for future recipients, it appear that probability of getting in the excluded for current working generation is high in case of younger old, lower education attainment, irregular employee, working at agriculture forestry fishery sector, construction sector, wholesale retail trade restaurants hotels sector, financial institution and insurance real estate renting and leasing sector in comparison with manufacturing sector, occpaying at elementary occupation, professionals technicians and associate professionals, sale and service workers, plant machine operators and assemblers, legislators senior officials and managers in comparison with clerks. The Policy measures for the current recipient old generation have need to reinforce supplemental role of Senior's pension(non-contribution pension) until maturing of public pension, because of no having chance of public pension participants for them. And the Policy measures for the future recipient working generation have need to restructure social security fundamentally corresponding with social-economic change as labour market and family structure etc. The pension system has need to change from one earner one pension to one citizen one pension with citizenship rights. At this point, public pension have need to manage with combining insurance's contribution principle and citizenship principle financing by taxes. Then public pension will become substantially universal social network for old-age income maintenance and we can find real solution for the excluded from.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.53
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• pp.31-49
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• 2003

Neo-liberalism, the most influential ideology in the current world, argues for the commercialization of social security programs and for the dissolution of the interventionist welfare state. From the neo-liberal viewpoint, social services become more efficient and more advantageous for recipients, when provided by the market, not by the state. It is also argued that the welfare of all social members is best secured when the market freely operates without any interference from the state. From the neo-liberal point of view, an argument was raised to commercialize the state-administered Workers' Compensation program of Korea in the mid-1990s. This argument was faced with strong resistances from labor unions and social welfare circles, and has disappeared since the economic breakdown and the restructuring of Korean society during the late 1990s. Butr, such an argument can emerge anytime as the nee-liberal ideology become more powerful. This article aims to examine the neo-liberal argument that the privatization of social security programs, through an increases in efficiency, improves the interests of the recipients as well as the whole society. For this, this article attempts to analyze the Workers' Compensation programs of the USA, which, from state to state, are administered by the state government or by private insurance companies. This study can serve as an effective critique for the neo-liberal argument, if it finds that state-administered Workers' Compensation programs are more efficient than those managed by insurance companies. This article's another aim is to assess the controversies over the privatization of the Workers' Compensation program of Korea during the mid to late 1990s. The controversies were more about which viewpoint is right and, in most cases, lacked empirical evidence. This study shall empirically criticize the argument for the privatization of the Workers' Compensation program.