This study examines the extent and structural drivers of wealth inequality in South Korea and proposes policy measures to mitigate the widening asset gaps. The analysis reveals that asset disparities are shaped by complex interactions among life-course trajectories, asset composition, debt utilization, and the impact of intergenerational transfers through inheritance. From a life-cycle perspective, a coordinated policy approach is required that integrates social and tax policies, prioritizing support for low-and middle-wealth groups.
The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to improve the Health and Welfare Data Portal into a more intuitive and user-friendly platform; and second, to expand the openness of health and welfare statistical information and data to enhance their usability.
This study examined cases of domestic and international data portals. Regarding the 2025 operations of the Health and Welfare Data Portal, the study proceeded with three main topics: first, the status of portal visits, content usage, and microdata provision was identified; second, a satisfaction survey was conducted with 1,000 users to analyze service satisfaction and improvement needs, such as search accuracy; and third, summarizing the 2025 portal restructuring―including new survey data integration and UI/UX redesign―while proposing future tasks such as continuous content development and quality management.
Amid a global deterioration in democracy-related indicators, concerns over social cohesion have intensified alongside growing claims that political conflict increasingly intersects with generational and gender divides. Against this backdrop, A Study of Assessment of Social Cohesion Status with Policy Implications (XII), now in its twelfth year, builds on the traditionally discussed concept of social cohesion while addressing the need to expand and refine this concept in response to changing political and social conditions. Drawing on survey data and a wide range of data sources, the study seeks to diagnose the current state of social cohesion (Chapter 3).
Chapter 4 aims to identify strategies for enhancing social cohesion by focusing on ways to promote social participation―one of its core components. To this end, data from 2014 to 2025 (excluding 2020) were compiled into pooled cross-sectional datasets, on which logit and regression analyses were conducted. Chapter 5 examines political orientations, value orientations, perceptions of the future, and attitudes toward welfare using the pooled cross-sectional data. Finally, Chapter 6 analyzes attitudes toward democracy and welfare based on the 2025 survey data.
This study investigates the current status of postpartum mental health and explores policy directions to enhance maternal well-being within the broader context of Korea’s persistently low fertility. It examines the prevalence and determinants of maternity blues and postpartum depression, analyzes their influence on mothers’ intentions for subsequent childbearing, and identifies key protective and risk factors associated with onset and recovery.
The findings underscore the necessity of developing comprehensive yet individualized postpartum mental health policies that are supported by robust legal and financial frameworks. These policies should promote early intervention and continuous management through an integrated system encompassing mothers, partners, and families, thereby reinforcing the sustainability and equity of maternal mental health support.
This study examines the need to apply a supportive housing model to the protection system for at-risk children and youth and proposes institutional measures to address the limitations of facility-centered care. It identifies structural protection gaps in the current system, including maladjustment to institutional care, discontinuities during transitions between systems, and the inability to adequately respond to the complex needs of older adolescents. Drawing on analyses of independent-living-oriented protection services in the United Kingdom and the United States, the study presents policy recommendations for delivering supportive housing-based child and youth protection services, focusing on the legal and institutional framework, service delivery system, housing types, professional workforce, and mechanisms for safeguarding rights.
This study explores trends and patterns in household change from the latter half of the 20th century to the present in South Korea, along with the demographic contexts that have driven these changes.
This study conducts an empirical analysis to identify the drivers of the rebound in the number of births in 2024, focusing on key factors such as the base effect following the COVID-19 period, the recent increase in marriage rates, the entry of the echo-boom generation into prime family formation ages alongside rising fertility among women in their 30s, and changes in attitudes toward marriage and fertility. Using objective data, including official birth statistics and a survey of women who gave birth in 2024, the study presents both structural and short-term factors underlying the rebound, examines the potential persistence of the recent rebound, and derives policy implications relevant to future birth trends.
This study is the first-year component of a three-year project aimed at establishing an internationally comparable social security fiscal analysis framework based on OECD SOCX. Using Large Language Models (LLMs), we constructed an integrated database that combines expenditure levels (quantitative data) and institutional characteristics (qualitative data) for 6,637 programs across 41 countries. A pilot analysis of the old-age domain demonstrated that this methodology enables the generation of integrated fiscal indicators, assessment of Korea's position through international comparison, and application to long-term fiscal analysis. This study is significant in establishing a fiscal analysis infrastructure capable of overcoming the limitations of expenditure-centered approaches and enabling simultaneous analysis of institutional characteristics and expenditure levels.
This study examines regional healthcare disparities in Korea through an analysis of national compensation policies and a comparison with approaches in Japan and the United States. The findings indicate that Korea’s current system comprises budget-funded models, fee-schedule supplement models, and alternative payment models (prospective or retrospective reimbursement), in which equity- and safety-net-oriented objectives are combined in a single framework, resulting in policy overlap and limited effectiveness. In contrast, policies in Japan and the United States differentiate reimbursement approaches according to distinct policy orientations, including equity-oriented adjustments and safety-net-oriented supplements. Based on these findings, this study proposes restructuring existing compensation mechanisms along three interrelated dimensions (equity, safety net, and performance) and establishing an integrated management system to coordinate these financial instruments.
This study established a population projection system for analyzing demographic change and supporting policy research to address unprecedented demographic transitions of ultra-low fertility and a super-aged society. We introduced the Parity Progression Ratio (PPR) method to incorporate first marriage rates as an explicit policy variable, extended life tables to age 130 to strengthen the analytical foundation for the oldest-old population, and constructed an integrated population-household projection framework based on marital status transitions. The 100-year projections under different first marriage rate scenarios confirmed the long-term cumulative effects of marriage support policies, while emphasizing that population aging cannot be mitigated by fertility policies alone, highlighting the importance of adaptation policies such as extending healthy life expectancy. This study is significant in establishing a framework for microsimulation integration that enables flexible responses to diverse policy scenarios.
