• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.651-657
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• 2024

This study comparatively analyzed the impact of childcare workforce cost on fertility rates across different countries. In the cases of Nordic countries, comprehensive childcare support policies and subsidies for childcare workforce costs were found to have a positive impact on fertility rates. In contrast, high childcare burden and economic pressures were identified as major factors contributing to declining fertility rates in East Asian countries. In developing countries, the effectiveness of childcare support policies varied depending on the socioeconomic context. This study suggests that the impact of childcare workforce cost on fertility rates manifests in diverse patterns across countries, and effective childcare support policies require tailored approaches that consider each country's specific circumstances. In the future, increased social investment in childcare and the spread of a culture that respects the value of care are necessary.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.29-73
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• 2007

This paper evaluates the effects of the Basic Subsidy Program provided to families with infants cared for in private day care centers. There has been a discrepancy in the price and quality level between public and private day care centers. Public day care centers which receive government support in their labor costs are able to maintain relatively higher quality at lower price than their private counterparts, while the majority of children are cared for at private day care centers. To reduce the gap of the price and quality of care between public and private day care centers by improving the quality and decreasing the price of private day care centers, the Basic Subsidy Program was introduced in 2006 to the private day care centers. The subsidies mainly aim to improve the quality and the accessibility of child care, and encourage mothers' labor supply. For this purpose, the provision of the Basic Subsidy Program imposed prerequisites to the care providers including minimum wage and four major insurances for teachers, and child-staff ratio. I examine whether the subsidies improve the quality of care, help mothers balancing work and family, and increase satisfaction with child care from mothers' perspective. Since the outcome variables that measure the quality of care are difficult to obtain, I instead use the input variables for quality production. Child-staff ratio, teachers' welfare, and care environment are considered. The relationship between these variables and the introduction of subsidies is examined. The 2004 National Survey of Child Care and Education and the 2004 National Survey of Day Care Centers are used for the base data set. To reflect the outcomes after the Basic Subsidy Program, equivalent data sets for households and care providers are constructed by the KDI Data Analysis Unit. Using these nationally representative data sets, information regarding child care is collected. The findings show that the subsidies contribute to the quality of care improving the input variables of quality production. The welfare of teachers is improved, and the child-staff ratio significantly decreases. As a result, the usage of private day care centers greatly increases even though the price level rarely changes. However, mothers' satisfaction with child care are rarely affected by the subsidies. Although the subsidies with no eligibility criteria enlarge the recipients, the actual effects to increase maternal labor supply or to improve satisfaction is limited. Given this findings, I suggest some modifications of subsidies to raise the effectiveness of the subsidy program.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.353-367
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• 2019

This study investigates the influence of family-friendly workplace policies and organizational culture on the willingness of married female managers to have a child. The analysis includes 353 married female managers from the $6^{th}$ survey of the 2016 Korean Women Manager Panel. Factors that are found to influence the respondents include age, education, number of children, job position, promotional goals, accessibility to family leave, accessibility to shorter work hours during the child-rearing period, and organizational culture. Female managers who can easily use family leave or who have shorter work hours during the child-rearing period show a higher willingness to have a child. By contrast, those whose work places employ a fair and horizontal organizational culture are less willing to have a child. The introduction of family-friendly policies are not found to be statistically significant determinants of female managers' willingness to have a child. We find that influencing family-friendly policies between the first and second childbirth differ. The accessibility of family-friendly policies that affect the willingness of female managers to have a child when they have no child include parental leave, employer-supported childcare, and childcare subsidies. For improving their willingness to have a second child, accessibility to both family leave and shorter work hours during the child-rearing period are effective. In conclusion, the government should strongly consider micro-personal factors, such as family-friendly workplace practices and organizational culture, when executing policies to reverse the current trend of low fertility.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.363-384
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• 2017

The Korean government implemented better support for adolescent single-parent families by expanding the coverage of the Single-parent Family Support Act in 2010. In order to understand the effect, this study verified the moderating effect of the single-parent family policy's support for child rearing in the context of adolescent female single-parent's stress levels and education sustainability. This study utilized part of the National Youth Policy Institute's 'Research on the Actual Condition of the Adolescent Pregnancy, Birth and Rearing Children'. Participants of the study were 248 adolescent single-parents aged 24 and below. The findings and discussion of this study are as follows. First, the stress level of adolescent female single-parent in continuing studies was lower than those for discontinued studies. Students who discontinued their education in the middle of studies showed an increase in life stress level relative to age because they had a low level of education and had discontinued studies before pregnancy. Second, the public nanny service has been verified as an element to increase the continuation of education by controlling the level of stress. It is advisable to fortify and expand the scope of support for childcare services in the form of a study assistant or child education assistant. Last, adolescent single-parent childcare subsidies have been verified as a direct factor that raised the meaningful level of education continuity potential to a meaningful standard that can be seen as a more effective method than general policy support for single-parent families.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.81-100
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• 2013

This study has attempted to suggest the direction for child care policy for 0-2 year old children in Korea from analysis on the issues included in the policy for free child care services of the Korean Government. For the analysis, such materials as governmental statistical reports of child care and policy and articles regarding free child care service in daily news papers during 2012 have been collected. From this study, it has been suggested that the policy for free child care for 0-2 year old children, in future, should take into account reliably carrying out matemity leave and parental leave arrangements, equity childcare support for working couples, realization of parental subsidies, expand parental choice, introduction of a small family day care system, providing information and knowledge on the development of infants and parenting. The suggestions of this study will contribute to the development and practice of an effective child care policy for 0-2 year children, which consider the needs and requirements of young children and their parents.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.5-23
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to identify factors affecting extra expenses incurred by extracurricular activities, prompted by the problem that the financial burden on households for their children's education and child-care is not showing enough signs of being mitigated, despite increased child-care subsidies from the government. Data for this study was obtained from the 4th Panel Study on Korean Children of Korea Institute of Child Care and Education. The analysis of the study shows that 68.5% of the surveyed children were participating in extracurricular activities and the average number of extracurricular activities they took part in was 2.9. The average extracurricular expenditure was 50.000 won. However, based on the findings of the survey, it was statistically significant to find that the number of extracurricular activities the children participated in and the expenditure the households spent on them varied by area. Variables were inserted in a gradual manner in identifying factors influencing households' expenditure on children's extracurricular activities. The results showed that amongst the variables used, the education level of the mother, the employment status of the mother, the type of the child-care support institution, and the household's place of residence featured prominently, with the place-of-residence factor accounting for most of the reason why a household spent the amount it did. The outcome of the study bears four policy implications: First, there is a need for a specific evaluation of the contents and costs of extracurricular activities and supervision and management of such activities. Second, it is necessary for the central government to provide a specific criteria of necessary expense. Third, throughout the child support agency, the courses and costs of special activities should be monitored regularly. Fourth, there should be extracurricular activity support for underprivileged children.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.97-124
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• 2001

Co-residence is a type of intergenerational private transfers of resources: money, time and space. Adult daughters and their elderly parents decide to co-reside, depending on their utility levels before and after co-residence that mainly depend on the health status of the elderly. Therefore, co-residence implies positive net benefits to both parties in the sense that, when they co-reside, elderly parents share childcare and adult daughter provide elderly care. In other words, formal (paid) care can be substituted with informal (unpaid) one. Both marriage and giving births are considered as the major obstacles to labor market attachment of women who bear burdens of home production and childcare. Co-residence can be a solution for married women to avoid career interruption by sharing burdens with their elderly parents. However, most previous studies using the U.S. data on intergenerational private transfers focused on elderly care and have concluded that they reduce government expenditures associated with public subsidies to the elderly. This study focuses on adult daughters and it examines effects of co-residence on labor supply of married women in Korea, who face limited formal childcare programs in terms of both quantity and quality. It applies the Tobit model of married women's labor supply to the data from the Second Wave of the Korean Labor and Income Panel Survey( 1999), in order to investigate effects of co-residence and the work and health status of the co-residing elderly as well as their own health status. Four specifications of the empirical model are tested that each includes co-residence with elderly parents, their gender, or their work and health status. Estimation results show that co-residence, co-residence with female elderly, and co-residence with not-working female elderly have significant positive effects on labor supply of married women while poor health status of co-residing female elderly does not bring about any negative effects. However, co-residence with male elderly, regardless of their work and health status, has no significant effect The results indicate that co-residence is closely related to sharing of home production among female elderly and adult daughters who are married and, through intergenerational private transfers of resources in terms of time, it helps women avoid career interruption.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.5-28
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• 2017

Using 2006~2015 Korean Welfare Panel Survey data, this study analyzed the poverty reduction effects of social security benefits. The results show that social security benefits have substantial impacts on reducing the poverty gap. National Basic Livelihood Security, public pensions, and Basic Pension have relatively larger poverty reduction effects. Other benefits such as disability benefits, workers' compensation unemployment insurance, and childcare subsidies have much smaller poverty impacts. Two determining factors of the poverty reduction effect are (1)the amount and (2)the poverty reduction efficiency of social security benefits. With the expansion of the social security system in recent years, the poverty reduction efficiency has decreased in general. Due to a greater increase in the amount of benefits, however, the poverty reduction effect has gradually increased. In order to increase the anti-poverty effect of social security, it is important to find ways to improve efficiency while minimizing the disadvantages of the selectivistic welfare benefits.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.141-156
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• 2013

Researchers in welfare services of local government in Korea have rather been on isolated issues as disables, childcare, aging phenomenon, etc. (Kang, 2004; Jung et al., 2009). Lately, local officials, yet, realize that they need more comprehensive welfare services for all residents, not just for above-mentioned focused groups. Still cases dealt with focused group approach have been a main research stream due to various reason(Jung et al., 2009; Lee, 2009; Jang, 2011). Social Security Information System is an information system that comprehensively manages 292 welfare benefits provided by 17 ministries and 40 thousand welfare services provided by 230 local authorities in Korea. The purpose of the system is to improve efficiency of social welfare delivery process. The study of local government expenditure has been on the rise over the last few decades after the restarting the local autonomy, but these studies have limitations on data collection. Measurement of a local government's welfare efforts(spending) has been primarily on expenditures or budget for an individual, set aside for welfare. This practice of using monetary value for an individual as a "proxy value" for welfare effort(spending) is based on the assumption that expenditure is directly linked to welfare efforts(Lee et al., 2007). This expenditure/budget approach commonly uses total welfare amount or percentage figure as dependent variables (Wildavsky, 1985; Lee et al., 2007; Kang, 2000). However, current practice of using actual amount being used or percentage figure as a dependent variable may have some limitation; since budget or expenditure is greatly influenced by the total budget of a local government, relying on such monetary value may create inflate or deflate the true "welfare effort" (Jang, 2012). In addition, government budget usually contain a large amount of administrative cost, i.e., salary, for local officials, which is highly unrelated to the actual welfare expenditure (Jang, 2011). This paper used local government welfare service data from the detailed data sets linked to the Social Security Information System. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors that affect social welfare spending of 230 local authorities in 2012. The paper applied multiple regression based model to analyze the pooled financial data from the system. Based on the regression analysis, the following factors affecting self-funded welfare spending were identified. In our research model, we use the welfare budget/total budget(%) of a local government as a true measurement for a local government's welfare effort(spending). Doing so, we exclude central government subsidies or support being used for local welfare service. It is because central government welfare support does not truly reflect the welfare efforts(spending) of a local. The dependent variable of this paper is the volume of the welfare spending and the independent variables of the model are comprised of three categories, in terms of socio-demographic perspectives, the local economy and the financial capacity of local government. This paper categorized local authorities into 3 groups, districts, and cities and suburb areas. The model used a dummy variable as the control variable (local political factor). This paper demonstrated that the volume of the welfare spending for the welfare services is commonly influenced by the ratio of welfare budget to total local budget, the population of infants, self-reliance ratio and the level of unemployment factor. Interestingly, the influential factors are different by the size of local government. Analysis of determinants of local government self-welfare spending, we found a significant effect of local Gov. Finance characteristic in degree of the local government's financial independence, financial independence rate, rate of social welfare budget, and regional economic in opening-to-application ratio, and sociology of population in rate of infants. The result means that local authorities should have differentiated welfare strategies according to their conditions and circumstances. There is a meaning that this paper has successfully proven the significant factors influencing welfare spending of local government in Korea.