• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.293-302
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• 2002

China in the era of economic transition has conducted the housing reform policy over the past 20 years. Housing providing systems have changed from the free distributing housing system under the governmental planning to the monetary housing system for individual customers. The 1998 monetary housing distribution policy, which ended the 20-year Chinese housing reform, departed from the direct distribution system that had blocked housing commodification. The purpose of the housing reform was to provide and reproduce housing without the expenses of the Chinese government and work unit (danwei), which is different from Russia. In order to achieve the housing reform, the Chinese government introduced various policies, which enabled residents to purchase housing by themselves. However, it took long for residents, who had taken government's welfare system granted, to accept housing as goods. In addition, the Chinese government's efforts to reproduce housing by market systems failed because housing was closely linked to land and was expensive consumption goods, which differentiates housing from other goods that can be commodified through market prices and diverse ownerships. Accordingly, despite a political burden, the Chinese government waived the real distribution policy for housing. After the waiver, the housing commodification process excelled through the private housing markets.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.65 no.4
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• pp.245-269
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• 2013

Self-sufficiency has been recognized as one of the most important welfare goals for women in the domestic violence field since the welfare reform in the U.S. A qualitative research design was conducted to explore the self-sufficiency experience of Korean-American single mothers with the history of domestic violence in poverty. The meaning of 'self-sufficiency' to participants is that a continuing task or process in life to move toward being independent mentally as well as economically. Their challenges toward self-sufficiency include the period of restoration of their potentials for self-sufficiency destroyed by domestic violence victimization and divorce, and the period of developing their sustainability for self-sufficiency. Their needs for 'help and support similar to care from the woman's parents' home', 'welfare service of select and concentration', 'mature dependency and self-sufficiency', and 'self-sufficiency from survival to dream come true' to cope with the challenges formentioned are reported. Concrete strategies for the development of self-sufficiency polices and services sensitive to immigrant single mothers with the history of domestic violence are suggested.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.48
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• pp.214-242
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• 2002

The purpose of this study is to predict the roles of public social workers and clarify their job. There were a few studies concerning them, and they suggested that it was needed to reform the delivery system or to supplement personnel. But they were almost normative. This study, based on the literature, analyzed public social workers' daily works to suggest their desirable roles. Generally the job of public social workers consists of two functions. One is income maintenance function, the other is social services function concerned with economically disadvantaged. The result showed that these functions were meshed up to now. Especially, It also showed that although they performed mostly eligibility work related public assistance and general practices, they wanted to perform professional practices. Took into account their working conditions, it seemed to be desirable to clarify their job. Thus, several suggestions based on these results are as follows: First, while eligibility functions are the central aspects of the public social worker's roles, it is needed for them to provide selected access services. Second, if they wanted to perform social services, it would be needed to restrict their roles for case manager and broker.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.46
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• pp.349-376
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• 2001

The objectives of this study is to examine the German mandatory prescription system in terms of the applicability and restriction of the pharmaceutical policy in order to obtain some useful implications for solving the problems in Korean prescription system. Recently, in Germany, an issue about the security of the prescription, the price control of the pharmaceuticals and the containment of the increasing prescription expenditure has been intensively discussed. Similar problems are also occurred in Korea. So, the policy measurements of Germany could be used in Korea. But it could not easy to introduce the German policy measurements in Korea because of the social-institutional differences between the two countries, which are following; (1) Korea has a short experience with the mandatory prescription system, (2) the German concept of the management differs from that of the Korea, (3) the subscribers and the patients are excluded from the decision making process, (4) the medical service providers often resist against reform plans. For the stable development of the Korean prescription system the principle of self-government, the collective bargaining concept for cost containment, and social consensus about optimal expenditure of the pharmaceuticals are expected to be needed.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.163-196
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• 2001

This paper is a critical assessment of 'productive welfare policy' of the Kim Dae-jung adminstration and I tried to make several recommendations as alternatives. Quite contrary to concept of 'productive' welfare, which promotes less government intervention and more market-friendly approach, the Kim Dae-jung adminstration seems to have been moving in the opposite direction. As alternatives, I suggested i) work-fare rather than cash assistance, ii ) Employment Insurance Account to cover non-regular workers, iii) Medical Savings Account for minor medical services to reform medical insurance, and iv) enhancement of labor market flexibility by abolishing mandated retirement allowances in Korea I finally proposed the tuition and fellowship support program to the low-income group to enhance their economic status in a knowledge-based society.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.45
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• pp.72-100
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• 2001

Despite the rapid expansion of social security coverage in the 1990s, many wage earners in Korea, especially the majority of the nonstandard workforce are excluded in the social insurance programs. In this regards, the purpose of this paper is to analyze causes of the exclusion of nonstandard workers to the social insurance scheme and to suggest the feasible policy options. Through this paper, four arguments are addressed as follows. First, the main issue for exclusion from coverage of those workers is that they have no entitlement to social insurance. This is not an issue of that they fall below hours or income thresholds for the entitlement Second, the top-down process of the extension in the Korean social insurances have divided the wage earners into two groups, the insider (the included) and the outsider (the excluded). Many nonstandard workers belong to the latter category. Third, the social insurance systems have been designed for the regular workers who were characterized by a full-time with some degree of stability. Reform designed to cope with the growth of nonstandard workers must build on the existing structure of social insurance. Finally, the governance capacity by social security administration body must be improved in order to provide a basic social protection for those workers. For that, four separated social insurance administration bodies could be unified to one administrative body, or tax and contribution of social insurance could be collected by one integrated administration body, the National Tax Service.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.222-231
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• 2007

Purpose: This study aims to suggest political alternatives for nursing care costs for PCAs to provide qualitative medical benefit for patients with occupational disease by investigating present situation and problems of the nursing care cost system of Korea's Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance. Methods: Data was collected from 6 workers' accident medical corporation and 275 nurses affiliated with Korea labor welfare corporation using self reported questionnaire. Result: Research results were as follows; Character of nursing care cost of the Korea's Industrial accident Compensation Insurance changed as if it aims to support for living expenses for the family; As possible problems which could be caused under current system, administrative problems, decrease of service quality were made as objects of criticism. Some patients did not make every effort in rehabilitation to be beneficiaries continuously. Some patients were supplied with whole one PCA or all-night PCA even though they did not need as much caring as such. Conclusion: The research suggested that PCAs payment system improvement is necessary, and the presented nurses' opinion for the improvement method could be applied for policy making.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.260-267
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• 2012

The objective of this study was to investigate drug classification system in Korea and other developed countries. Laws and regulations of Korea regarding the system were retrieved from sources posted in Ministry of Government Legislation. We also reviewed previous research reports performed as part of government's effort to reform the system The system in the foreign countries was retrieved from the official homepage operated by each country's government. There have been two research funded by Korean government, which strongly suggested that the system should be reformed. However, we found that the system was never reformed and still effective. Drug classification system in US and most western countries consists of two categories, i.e., prescription drugs and non-prescription drugs except UK, which classifies into three categories: Prescription Only Medicines, Pharmacy Medicines, and General Sales List Medicines. Interestingly, in Japan, non-prescription drugs are further classified into three groups: Group 1, 2, and 3. Recently, Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) in Korea proposed a plan to reclassify all the approved drugs according to purportedly rational and scientific criteria. However, the plan does not include reform of the existing laws and regulations, which appears that it is just one-time action rather than a sustainable administration backed up by law. Therefore, it is recommended that Korean MOHW take appropriate action on laws and regulations with regard to the system to meet global harmonization standard.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.1-40
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• 2008

In this paper, I examine the welfare effects of various revenue-neutral tax reforms in the case of two vertically-related oligopolies(downstream and upstream), where the upstream industry is polluting. I show analytically when and how government can improve welfare by initiating various tax reforms, regardless of either the feasibility of a lump sum transfer or the availability of a tax on pollution. The profit wedge that is the difference between the unit price and the unit cost and the marginal environmental damages(MED) becomes important to decidethe direction of a tax reform and is crucial to determine the direction of welfare-improving tax-subsidy schemes. I also show that a tax on pollution(Pigouvian tax) is superior to a tax on intermediate good even in the case of vertically-related oligopolies, because the former always brings in positive welfare effect from the upstream firms' input substitutability, which a tax on intermediate good cannot provide. Some policy implications for 'reducing environmentally-harmful subsidies' are also discussed.