• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.109-142
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• 2018

This paper aims to analyze the Award wage system in Australia for construction workers. Considering low wages and precarious employment situation of construction workers in general, it is of advantage especially for them in Australia. Furthermore, it seems to be instructive for Korean construction workers, who stand in more precarious and unstable situation and furthermore are lack of fair wage and social safety. After strong and longstanding labour struggle in the late 19th century in Australia, it has been established a tripartite institution called as 'tribunal' between trade unions, employers, and the government. Under the highly institutionalized form of industrial relations, it functions as an arbitration and conciliation system between labour and management. The Award wage system stands in the middle point. This Award wage system including various welfare provisions is settled by the tribunal, today renamed as Fair Work Commission. In this wage system should be defined level of minimum wages according to the various skill levels, which are in turn connected with compulsory superannuation and Medicare as well as vocational education and training. Furthermore, it provides especially for the construction workers, who suffer from job instability, so-called 'portable benefits', which relate to long service leave and redundancy pay. Considering general conditions of precarious construction workers in Korea, In that respect, the Australian Award wage system would be very instructive for our social wage and safety system for construction workers.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.35-60
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• 2016

This study analyzes the unequal distributional effect of threesome of family policy(child benefit, childcare services and parental leave) focusing on family income, mother's status in labor market in Korea. To measure the unequal distributional effect of family policies, this study used the quantile analysis. The results of this study are as follows. First, in terms of childcare service and parental leave, there is some difference of the rate of use by family income and mother's status in labor market. Second, total public fund for childcare services, child benefits and parental leave are high in fourth income quintile, and mothers work regularly. Third, public fund is high in fourth income quintile, dual earners, mothers work regularly, the family has many number of child, and is high educational level of parents. Finally, the results of quantile regression show the biggest factors of unequal distribution of family policy are mother's stable work and it deepens the inequalities and differences. Based on these results, this article suggests that more equal right to access and use family policy regardless of the type of employment, adequate minimum income through income transfer, and universal application of the policy.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.1-17
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• 2022

This study provides a critical analysis of the Family Center's programs for adoptive families by interviewing employees at these centers and at Adoption Agencies who have experiences with adoption programs. For this study, nine such workers from three separate Family Centers and three such workers from two separate Adoption Agencies have (voluntarily) engaged in in-depth interviews. Major findings from the interviews are that the Family Centers were initially motivated to carry out adoption family programs for three principal reasons: they located many families (in need of adoption family program); potential adoptees were interested in the program; adoption families participated in the pre-existing programs such as Self-help Group and Co-parenting Space. Workers in the study also reported that they approach to an adoption family and their contemplation on ways to provide better services to the adoption families. They don't have any official and formal manual or guidelines from the Government Ministries and offices such as Korean Institute for Healthy Family; as a result, the workers at Family Centers have endeavored to gain connection with Adoption Agencies in hopes of cooperation with them and to improve the services at Family Centers. For benefits of Family Centers as a delivery system, they mentioned nationwide infrastructure, family professional, and arrangement of integrated program for family. For improvements, they listed awareness education based on a thorough consideration of adoptee's varied characteristics, close cooperation with adoption institutions, provision of basic operational manual from Korean Institute for Healthy Family, and governmental efforts to enlarge the consideration pool for families.

• 한국노년학
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.1263-1280
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• 2010

The present study describes the acculturation meaning of 12 Chinese-Chosun residential care attendants(RCAs) who are currently working in long-term care settings for Korean older adults. Using a qualitative research method, the findings show that the acculturation process of Chinese-Chosun RCAs consists of three stages: entrance, conflict, and adaptation. In the initial stage, the assets of the social and cultural networks among their friends and relatives, who already settled down or employed as RCAs, provided more opportunities for being employed as a RCA. However, most Chinese-Chosun RCAs experienced a number of conflicts while they adapted to mainstream society and perform caregiving tasks. They perceived discrimination, heavy workload, prejudice, and homesick. Nevertheless, they appeared to adapt effectively to Korean society and working environments because they were aware of the various benefits of working as a RCA such as higher wage and more job openings compared to other jobs, a rapport with the patients and patients' families, flexible work hours, and pride as a caregiver. This type of qualitative groundwork will be an important precursor to the design, implementation, and evaluation of acculturation research for minority immigrant workers in the Korean social welfare system.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.35-65
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between health insurance and health by evaluating the impacts of health insurance coverage expansion on health care utilization and health status. To analyze the causal relationship between health insurance and health, this study employed a "difference-in-difference method" that could compare changes in health care utilization and health status across groups in health insurance coverage expansion in 2005. The researcher predicted that the expansion of health insurance coverage would be an exogenous source of variation in the prices of health service use. First, the difference-in-differences estimator between 'illness group' and 'non-illness group' revealed that the increase in coverage of inpatient care services would result from the increases in the stay of length of 'non-illness group' rather than that of 'illness group'. However, the difference-in-differences estimator between 'serious illness group' and 'chronic illness group' identified that the policy change that focuses on expansion of the coverage for 'serious illness' effects on the increases in health care utilization and promotion of health status. In summary, the changes of health insurance coverage focusing on serious illness and inpatient care have positive effects on health care utilization and health status of serious illness group. But, 'non-illness groups' with acute illness receive more benefits from the policy change than 'illness group' with chronic illness.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.323-350
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• 2011

Work ability is a fundamental factor to determine who are the recipients of disability benefits or employment services. Disability Grade based on medical impairments is used as a work ability assessment in Korea, but it has been heavily criticized that it does not assess disabled person's work ability adequately. This study tried to find out an index which explains employment status of disabled persons the best among four work ability assessment indexes of disability grade, level of ICF activity limitations and participation restriction, level of help needed with daily activities, and self-assessed health status. As a result, the level of ICF activity limitations and participation restriction explained the employment status the best, and help needed for daily activities is the second, disability grade is the third, and self-assessed health status is the last. In conclusion, level of ICF activity limitations and participation restriction is the best work ability assessment in Disabled People Pension and Employment Policy for Disabled People. Therefore, it is the basic premise to develop a new work ability assessment index which consists of items in ICF activity limitations and participation restriction.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.729-736
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• 2023

Traditionally, Germany, a conservative welfare state, has pursued a male breadwinner model based on gender division of labor. For a long time, Germany tried to address low fertility through economic support centered on cash benefits, but it was not successful. In 2007, the German government began to shift the paradigm of family policy for work-life balance under the slogan of "A mix of time policy, income transfer, and infrastructure." When the issue of low birth rates emerged as a national concern in Germany, there was a growing social sentiment that not only the government but also private companies should contribute to increasing fertility by providing family-friendly personnel policies and working conditions. Private companies have been voluntarily improving family-friendly working conditions beyond legal obligations, aiming to secure personnel and prevent turnover. Germany's fertility rate is currently rising toward the European average level in 2023, which can be attributed to the government's work-life balance policies and the participation of private companies. In terms of improving work-life balance policies in Korea, it has been proposed to change the perception of the need for fathers to participate in child care, to make parental leave compulsory for men, to guarantee employment for women after childbirth, to expand child care facilities, and to revitalize family-friendly policies in companies.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.71-130
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• 2008

Using data from the Korean Labor & Income Panel Study (KLIPS), this study investigates private income transfers in Korea, where adult children have undertaken the most responsibility of supporting their elderly parents without well-established social safety net for the elderly. According to the KLIPS data, three out of five households provided some type of support for their aged parents and two out of five households of the elderly received financial support from their adult children on a regular base. However, the private income transfers in Korea are not enough to alleviate the impact of the fall in the earned income of those who retired and are approaching an age of needing financial assistance from external source. The monthly income of those at least the age of 75, even with the earning of their spouses, is below the staggering amount of 450,000 won, which indicates that the elderly in Korea are at high risk of poverty. In order to analyze microeconomic factors affecting the private income transfers to the elderly parents, the following three samples extracted from the KLIPS data are used: a sample of respondents of age 50 or older with detailed information on their financial status; a five-year household panel sample in which their unobserved family-specific and time-invariant characteristics can be controlled by the fixed-effects model; and a sample of the younger split-off household in which characteristics of both the elderly household and their adult children household can be controlled simultaneously. The results of estimating private income transfer models using these samples can be summarized as follows. First, the dominant motive lies on the children-to-parent altruistic relationship. Additionally, another is based on exchange motive, which is paid to the elderly parents who take care of their grandchildren. Second, the amount of private income transfers has negative correlation with the income of the elderly parents, while being positively correlated with the income of the adult children. However, its income elasticity is not that high. Third, the amount of private income transfers shows a pattern of reaching the highest level when the elderly parents are in the age of 75 years old, following a decreasing pattern thereafter. Fourth, public assistance, such as the National Basic Livelihood Security benefit, appears to crowd out private transfers. Private transfers have fared better than public transfers in alleviating elderly poverty, but the role of public transfers has been increasing rapidly since the welfare expansion after the financial crisis in the late 1990s, so that one of four elderly people depends on public transfers as their main income source in 2003. As of the same year, however, there existed and occupied 12% of the elderly households those who seemed eligible for the National Basic Livelihood benefit but did not receive any public assistance. To remove elderly poverty, government may need to improve welfare delivery system as well as to increase welfare budget for the poor. In the face of persistent elderly poverty and increasing demand for public support for the elderly, which will lead to increasing government debt, welfare policy needs targeting toward the neediest rather than expanding universal benefits that have less effect of income redistribution and heavier cost. Identifying every disadvantaged elderly in dire need for economic support and providing them with the basic livelihood security would be the most important and imminent responsibility that we all should assume to prepare for the growing aged population, and this also should accompany measures to utilize the elderly workforce with enough capability and strong will to work.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.303-319
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• 2003

This study was designed to examine the extent of job-related stress and job satisfaction and factors affecting job satisfaction of educare center teachers. Special attention was given to the differences due to the various organizational types of educare centers. Two hundred and twenty two public and private educare center teachers of C city were drawn as samples of this study. Self-administered questionnaire method containing items (m job-related stress, Job satisfaction and socio-demographic background was employed and the data were analyzed with SPSSWlN using descriptive statistics, factor analysis and regression analysis. Findings suggested that the major job-related stresses were related to work experiences, working hours, and the number of on-the-job training opportunities. Work place characteristics such as the total number of children in the class, working hours and wage also affected the level of Job satisfaction. Additionally significant statistical differences were found on the job-related stress and the job satisfaction between teachers in public and private educare centers. In the question of the effect of job-related stress on the job satisfaction, job-related stress explained 12% of work-satisfaction, 33% of satisfaction related to the current working place. Accordingly it was possible to draw a conclusion that educare center teachers' job-related stresses. were not ascribed by personal characteristics but by work-related factors such a, poor administrative support low wage and the overwhelming task related stressors The main stressor of job satisfaction was poor administrative support. Differences on job-related stress and job satisfaction_between among teachers of public and private unit were distinctive throughout the study. These results, implicate that workshops are recommended to help diminish the job-related stress among educare center teachers. It is imperative that enhanced work benefits and improved working environment will in turn enhance the quality of services in educare centers.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.129-150
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• 2013

The issue of child care in family policy is one of the most important agendas. It is the primary task for a welfare state to form such conditions as socializing it to ensure labor rights and parental rights. The aim of this study is to review any controversies in the agenda of free choice in child care. But real 'free choice' comes true when all community members as individuals are able to enjoy their rights as both workers and parents without any restriction and sexual discrimination in the labor market. But in reality 'free choice' has not been realized in our society. This study is based on the analysis of these issues in free choice - the concepts of liberty, equity and equality, the role of the state, financial efficiency and the status of women in the labor market. Based on the analysis of the issues in accordance with the criteria, I suggest some policy recommendations: adequate and sufficient child care services, the introduction of univer sal child benefits and the expansion of public child care facilities.