South Korea faces a demographic crisis with low fertility rates and an aging population despite long-standing governmental interventions. In contrast, Sweden has maintained relatively higher fertility rates through comprehensive policies, including family support, labor market strategies, and immigration frameworks. Sweden’s policies evolved from targeted fertility measures in the 1930s to gender equality initiatives and socio-economic strategies that promote employment stability and social integration. South Korea can learn from Sweden's holistic approach by aligning family, labor, immigration, and pension policies while fostering a more inclusive immigration policy and reducing childcare burdens through cultural and institutional reforms.
This study analyzes the complex challenges of economic hardship and time poverty experienced by single-parent households. Despite their active engagement in both work and caregiving, the current support system often limits access and undermine self-sufficiency due to rigid eligibility criteria, abrupt benefit cutoffs, and income reversal effects. Time-related support remains narrowly focused on low-income groups, while structural blind spots within the labor market further constrain access to effective caregiving support. The study offers policy recommendations to enhance both economic and time related support systems, aiming to strengthen the foundation for self-sufficient among simgle-parent families and improve their overall quality of life.
Amid a growing sense of crisis in South Korea, driven by the world’s lowest fertility rate and a rapidly aging population, there is mounting pressure to overhaul the nation’s population policy. Germany’s experience with a low birthrate and aging population, which preceded South Korea’s, along with its efforts to address these challenges in response to a national crisis, offers valuable lessons. In the 1990s, Germany had the lowest fertility rate in Europe, but through significant family policy reforms, including expanding childcare facilities and introducing parental leave, it has emerged as a model for addressing low fertility. Germany’s regional policy, which emphasizes “equal living conditions,” is characterized by the development of policy strategies and specific implementation plans built on social consensus about the policy’s direction. Regarding immigration policy, the government introduced the Immigration Act for Skilled Workers (Fachkr？fteeinwanderungsgesetz) and is working to transform the country into a more attractive destination for immigrants.
This study reviewed Japan’s population decline policies to identify applicable measures for Korea. Japan’s approach―centered on child-rearing support and regional revitalization―involves collaboration between central and local governments. Key initiatives include attracting foreign talent, supporting internal migration, addressing vacant housing, and assisting shopping refugees. The study suggests five directions for Korea: improve the system by taking advantage of the purpose of the hometown love donation system, respond to the de facto population and the society with more deaths than births, efforts to improve local residents’ awareness and acceptance of foreign workers, promote public-private cooperation and an integrated approach, and establish a support system for shopping refugees.
The overarching objective of social policy is to enhance people’s happiness and quality of life. This study examines the validity and reliability of measurements of happiness, an abstract experience, and quality of life, a multidimensional concept.
This study examines the characteristics of parental support during young adulthood. It reveals that parental support extends beyond financial assistance to include emotional support, advice, and involvement, with strong emotional bonds facilitating greater instrumental support. Parents and children recognize the value of parental support, not as a matter of moral obligation but as a crucial factor influencing their transition to adulthood. The study also highlights class-based disparities in parental support.
The Korean welfare state is facing three megatrends: technological change, demographic change, and climate change. This study analyzes whether and how these three factors individually and collectively reinforce or alleviate existing new and old ‘social risks’ and whether they may lead to new types of social risks. The concept of social risks was reviewed, and the current state of the Korean welfare state was examined. In the main body, each chapter analyzed how each change affects old and new social risks and contributes to forming new types of social risks, referred to as third-generation social risks. Finally, the study explored how these three changes interact or mediate one another to impact social risks. Through this analysis, six emerging types of third-generation social risks were identified.
This study analyzes the characteristics of changes in central government spending on social security from 2007 to 2024. To do so, we built a social security fiscal database and analyzed the distribution of social security expenditures by target, benefit type, and age group. We also compared the changes in fiscal expenditures with the changes in major social risks by age group to draw implications for improving future fiscal expenditures.
This study aims to analyze the organizational structure and workforce management of welfare administration in Korean metropolitan governments and explore policy implications for enhancing their autonomy and accountability. This study begins with highlighting key institutional issues. Second, we conduct a cross-sectional and time-series analysis of the budget, organizational structure, and workforce management in Korean metropolitan governments. Third, we qualitatively analyze data from interviews with metropolitan government officials to explore key issues in organizational structure and workforce management. Fourth, an empirical survey of public officials at both metropolitan and local government levels provides further insight into the state of welfare administration. Based on these findings, this study proposes three key strategies for improving metropolitan welfare administration.
This study aims to project the distributional outcomes of social security, taking into account the performance of national health insurance. Using KIHASA Microsimulation model (‘KIHASA SIM’), we analyzed the redistributive effects of the national pension and health insurance systems.
The findings are as follows. First, The government's pension reform proposal, which increases both the contribution rate and the income replacement rate, with a relatively larger increase in the income replacement rate, is expected to worsen income redistribution.
Second, increasing efficiency of the public healthcare system is slightly more favorable to high-income earners, whereas enhancing equity is relatively more advantageous for low-income groups. However, the increase in net pension benefits resulting from improved equity in health insurance was slightly larger for high-income groups. This could be attributed to the lower pension receipt rates among low-income individuals or suggest that, superficial changes in cost-sharing and benefit design alone may have limited effects in redistribution if health disparities by income level are not mitigated at earlier stages of disease onset.
Third, efficiency of public health spending is a key factor influencing net benefits. Differences in efficiency between public and private expenditures act as a mediating factor in determining net benefits through the national healthcare system, thereby creating disparities across income groups. It is important to note that when both equity and efficiency are improved simultaneously, the total net benefits tend to increase, contributing significantly to reducing disparities.
