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.
This study investigates policies and support systems for children with borderline intellectual functioning in out-of-home care, with the aim of identifying strategies to strengthen assistance and improve systemic frameworks. Drawing on a review of domestic and international literature and focus group interviews with practitioners, the analysis highlights key issues in diagnosis and service provision. The findings recommend improving the care infrastructure for children with borderline intellectual functioning in out-of-home placements, amending relevant laws and regulations, establishing differentiated behavioral support systems and professional consulting frameworks tailored to their behavioral characteristics and group-living environments, clarifying the legal roles and functions of individual care management plans, and strengthening the competencies of care workers.
This study aims to reframe higher education financial aid policy from a social investment perspective and to develop performance indicators capable of evaluating the policy’s actual effectiveness. To overcome the limitations of traditional input-output based evaluation methods, the study establishes a systematic framework of short-, medium-, and long-term indicators that comprehensively capture policy outcomes and social value. Additionally, monetizable proxy indicators are presented to provide a foundation for empirical analysis. The analysis confirms that financial aid policy for higher education is not merely a mechanism to reduce the cost of education, but rather a form of social investment that generates long-term benefits―such as increased lifetime earnings, improved health outcomes, enhanced social cohesion, and broader national-level advantages. In light of these findings, it is necessary to advance the policy evaluation framework by shifting toward outcome-based assessments and adopting a social investment approach to measuring social returns within welfare-related public expenditures.
This study confirms that artificial intelligence (AI) technology is effective in improving the quality of survey data and enhancing work efficiency through a review of domestic and international prior studies, case analyses, and empirical research. Furthermore, as AI technology continues to advance, it is expected that methods for managing survey data quality will become increasingly sophisticated.
This study evaluates the effectiveness of COVID-19 policy responses in five major countries―Korea, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Norway―and aims to draw policy implications for future crises. The analysis finds that Korea was particularly vulnerable to employment shocks due to its high concentration of face-to-face service industries, a large share of self-employed workers, and a significant proportion of temporary and daily employment. The impact was especially severe for women.
The pandemic revealed structural weaknesses in the Korean labor market and significant gaps in the employment safety net. To address these issues, it is essential to expand the coverage of unemployment benefits and job retention support, and to enhance the inclusiveness and accessibility of family care and sick leave policies in order to ease care burdens. Strengthening social protection for the self-employed and platform workers is also a critical priority.
Since the economic crisis in the late 1990s, social welfare spending in Korea has increased rapidly, and cash transfer programs have expanded even more swiftly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While Korea’s cash transfer programs were once focused primarily on ensuring the livelihood of vulnerable groups, there has recently been a rise in universal benefit programs aimed at addressing demographic challenges such as low birth rates and population aging. From the perspective of fiscal sustainability, it is now necessary to evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of these programs.
In particular, while universal benefits such as Child Allowances or Baby Bonus clearly provide additional household income through public transfers at the micro level, it remains unclear whether these programs are achieving their originally intended goals.
Against this backdrop, the present study aims to empirically examine whether cash-based welfare programs―such as Baby Bonus, the Child Allowances, and EITC―are meeting their intended objectives. Through this analysis, the study seeks to derive common policy implications for major cash transfer p
This study examined the concept of health system resilience and trends in international discussions. Based on the guidebook titled 'A Practical Handbook for Resilience Testing' jointly published by the OECD, EU, and WHO Regional Office for Europe in 2024, it assessed the capacity to respond to infectious disease crises and identified areas for improvement. Additionally, it examined the social, geopolitical, and environmental shocks facing the health sector.
