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 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 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 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.
This study analyzes climate anxiety among future generations in the context of the climate crisis and proposes national policy responses to support mental well-being. Focusing on young adults as a representative group, the findings show that climate anxiety is widespread and has both positive and negative implications: it can encourage pro-environmental and health-related behaviors while simultaneously increasing the risk of depressive symptoms. The study further identifies cut-off points for the Korean version of the Climate Change Anxiety Scale (K-CCAS), empirically indicating levels at which climate anxiety may constitute a potential mental health concern.
The study underscores the need to move beyond treating climate anxiety as a uniform issue among all young people and instead adopt differentiated policy approaches according to its level and type. Based on these findings, it proposes integrated national intervention strategies linking the health and environmental sectors, centered on monitoring, education, psychological support, and communication. In addition, it emphasizes policy directions that position young people not merely as beneficiaries, but as active agents in climate adaptation efforts.
This study seeks to reorganize the indicator framework for improving quality of life in older age from a future-oriented policy perspective, in response to the advancement of a super-aged society. Taking into account the need for time-series consistency and international comparability, the study identifies indicators within existing measurement systems that require revision and proposes new indicators that reflect emerging social needs. In doing so, it aims to strengthen the policy relevance and practical usability of the indicator system as an evidence base for informed policy development and decision-making.
We investigate the reasons for negative perceptions of inequality despite recent improvements in income distribution. The results show that while household income is becoming more equal, deepening inequality in other economic resources, such as consumption, wages, and assets, contributes to negative perceptions of distribution. Above all, the deepening of asset inequality appears to be a powerful driver of these negative perceptions. Based on these findings, we divide the policy targets into two groups: a low-income/low-asset group and a middle-income group. For the former, we propose several policies with the goal of securing household economic liquidity; for the latter, we suggest policy measures designed to increase opportunities for asset accumulation.
The rapid expansion of assisted reproductive technologies (ART), the growing demand for infertility treatment, and advances in life sciences have intensified ethical debates over embryo production, underscoring the need for stricter regulation of embryo-producing medical institutions.
This study identified shortcomings in the current designation criteria (personnel, facilities, and equipment) and proposed more practical standards, along with stronger post-management measures such as re-designation, on-site evaluations, and professional certification for embryologists. In the long term, it recommends establishing a comprehensive legal framework, either through a unified ART law or by positioning the Bioethics and Safety Act as a fundamental law with ART-specific regulations.
