Korean social welfare services have followed a different path from the general development of social welfare services in Western welfare states. The most striking feature in Korea is that social welfare services were provided voluntarily at the private level long before various social policies that could provide social welfare services were developed in earnest. This study tried to examine how the role-sharing relationship between the state and the private sector has changed in Korea's representative social welfare service areas, such as child welfare and community welfare, over the past century, focusing on representative cases. After the Korean War, social welfare services in Korea, which had been expanded centered on children's residential facilities, began to shift from the 1970s onward to focus on community welfare in response to changes in demand for child welfare such as a decrease in war orphans. Social pressure sometimes brought functional changes to traditional residential facilities, and at other times led to an expansion of the breadth of their services. An example this study takes as a case in point is Jinwoonwon, which had attempted to double as a social welfare center as far back as in the 1970s. With its such attempt not having gone through, Jinwoonwon tried to expand its functions by realizing the construction of a comprehensive children's welfare center. In the end, however, it was not evaluated as being successful for both the juridical person and the local community. Since the mid-1980s, facilities such as community centers, welfare centers for the disabled, senior welfare centers, youth counseling centers, and domiciliary care centers have been expanded. In the era of service consumption, the pressure for deinstitutionalization has increased. Nevertheless, child welfare facilities are still needed, and changes must be made to services that are provided to respond to new child issues, such as child abuse, which have recently attracted social attention. What is confirmed in the several examined cases is that since the 1980s, as the roles of the two actors, the private sector and the state, have strengthened, a dangerous period in which the conflict between the state and the private sector can be internalized continues. When looking at the institutions analyzed in this study, the fact that the absolute amount of national subsidies in the composition of financial resources can undermine the independence of the private sector. After all, now is the time when the state and the private sector need close cooperation with each other. Close cooperation should be achieved at a level that secures individuality while maintaining an appropriate distance, not too close and not too far. Welfare society is not achieved solely by the power of the government, but mutual aid activities and volunteer activities must be activated so that the power of the private sector must be combined. It is necessary to ensure that a welfare community is built on the basis of “family and neighborhood, and region and country” and that the vulnerable and the poor, such as children, the elderly, and the disabled, are protected, and active support from the public sector is required. It is necessary to promote private donations and volunteer work, induce voluntary participation of religious and non-profit organizations, strengthen the organic cooperation system with the private sector, and achieve more effective welfare effects.

The recent global spread of COVID-19 has a ripple effect that heralds a great change in human civilization. Due to this, the fundamental changes in daily life are expected where no one can be exempt from. Therefore, it is indispensable to transform the state responsibility and the levels of intervention for the welfare of people, and the design and the operation of welfare policies and system. It is also necessary to examine and reset the fundamental social policy paradigm. This study consists of two major parts. First, it is intended to identify the characteristics of Korea which could be described by process of policy formulation and current status by systematically and comprehensively analyzing the development history of health and welfare policies. Based on this, the study suggests changing factors and related policy tasks that should be noted and studied for policy paradigm shift. In particular, the aspect of health and welfare policies and short- and long-term tasks to cope with the crisis of great transformation by COVID-19 pandemic will be the focus of discussion. Second, the study intended to develop the history of health and welfare policy and related research materials into digital contents which could increase the universal understanding and awareness of health and welfare policy by improving the public accessibility of health and welfare policy information. In order to be prepared for a future research environment where the zero contact(non-contact) is expected to become a new normal, it is intended to provide an online space for examining the past, present, and future of health and welfare policies and research from KIHASA by establishing an archive of research records at the online space.

In recent years, the scope and beneficiaries of social security have been continuously expanding in South Korea. Accordingly, social welfare expenditure has been steadily increasing. Although the expansion of welfare policies continues, efforts to identify and verify the effects of welfare policies have been relatively neglected. Identifying the effectiveness of welfare policies and finding out the way to increase their effectiveness helps to reduce blind spots in welfare policies. As a result, welfare benefits can spread to a broader range of people. This study aims to identify the beneficiaries' perception of welfare policies and to derive methods to increase the effectiveness of policies. This study classifies beneficiaries based on their specific patterns of perception of welfare policies, which are hidden behind inconsistent responses about the satisfaction with various welfare policies. Individuals were grouped into four groups, and factors influencing group decisions were identified. The data used for the analysis was a welfare perception survey conducted by the Korea Welfare Panel Study. A Clustering methodology was used to classify groups with similar welfare perceptions, and a logistic regression model was also used to analyze how the groups were determined. As a result of the analysis, beneficiaries could be divided into four groups based on the perception of various welfare policies. Each group had different characteristics according to the perception of the government's welfare policy. In addition, factors determining each group were different according to various demographic and sociological factors. This study could show which factors are essential to maximize the effectiveness of welfare policies and the satisfaction of beneficiaries. Therefore, the analysis results derived from this study would be helpful when prioritizing the beneficiary groups.

This study aims to examine determinants of health in older adults aged 65 or older with a particular attention to community environment (physical, social, and policy environment). The study also investigates whether the associations between community environment and health vary by individual socioeconomic status. Data are drawn from multiple sources including the 2019 Community Health Survey, Korean Statistical Information Service Regional Indicators, and Land Survey to analyze the association between community-level environment indicators and individual-level health outcomes. We use multilevel modeling to take into account the interdependence between individuals within each region(si-gun-gu). The analytic sample includes 66,949 adults aged 65 or older living in 250 si-gun-gu regions. The results show that the average walking distances to parks, health care facilities, senior centers, and public gyms are significantly different across regions. Levels of social capital (trust toward and support from other community residents) and satisfaction with community environment also significantly differ across regions. Findings from the multilevel models suggest the positive effects of social capital and satisfaction with community environment on older individuals’ self-rated health, depressive symptoms, and cognitive disability. Also, the higher rates of basic pension recipients in the regions are associated with poorer self-rated health of individuals, and those who are residing in rural area report lower levels of depressive symptoms but show higher likelihoods of cognitive disabilities. Finally, the positive effects of the better access to health care and recreational facilities of the communities are more evident among older adults in 70s and those with lower levels of socioeconomic status compared to their respective counterparts. Our findings suggest that community environment and social capital such as trust and support between community residents are important for the physical, mental, and cognitive health of community-residing older adults. Thus, it is important to make the communities more aging-, health-friendly and develop community programs and places to encourage interactions and support between the residents. Given the greater effects of the access to the community resources among those with lower levels of socioeconomic status, special attention and policies are needed for such vulnerable groups of older adults.

As a result of the analysis using Household Income and Expenditure Survey(HIES), the consumption of child household is larger in size and propensity to spend than no-child household. And as the proportion of education expenses is high, consumption for leisure and housing decreases especially in school-age, multi-child, and low-income households during the economic downturn. In the analysis using KOREA Welfare Panel Study(KOWEPS), the effect of raising the poverty rate of child support based on equivalised disposable income in 2018 was 3.5%p, the effect of lowering the poverty rate of the child sector's wage is 1.0%p related to childcare, 0.09%p child allowance (September to December), and 0.05%p CTC. Given the economic difficulties of raising children and the institutional examples of OECD countries, the current child allowance needs to be expanded into a more multi-layered support system by expanding the age group, adding selective support based on the number of children, and combining systems for the vulnerable class such as single-parent, dual-income, and unemployed households.

In the initial phase, EITC was not applied to households having the benefits from the National Basic Livelihood Security System (NBLSS). Then, it has been available for them with NBLSS since 2015. Our study aims to analyze the effect of this change in EITC on the labor participation of the working and workable poor, considering that many of the NBLSS recipients live below the poverty line. Due to data availability, we roughly estimate the effect by focusing on two groups, one receiving only NBLSS and the other receiving both NBLSS and EITC. The results indicate that EITC could increase the labor participation of NBLSS recipients, but it seems to be limited to some NBLSS recipients who do not live in poverty. The results imply that we need to contemplate the more effective ways to help the poor pull themselves out of poverty through work.

This study aims to investigate the working life of the youth population during the Covid-19 pandemic. The youth labor market is known as vulnerable to economic downturns and less resilient than any other age group in previous recessions. Using a difference-in-differences framework applied to the economically active population survey microdata, this study confirmed that the youth population is more affected by the Covid-19 pandemic than other working-age groups. The employment rates of youth decreased both in the first and the third waves of the pandemic. During the first wave (March to April 2020), face-to-face service sectors, where young workers were widely employed, contributed to decreased youth employment. However, by the third wave (December 2020), the hiring freeze on regular positions led young graduates seeking decent jobs to stay out of the labor market. Among the youth population, male humanities and social science graduates who left school 2 to 4 years earlier showed the highest decrease in employment. This study also found that gender differences in reacting to this recession. During the pandemic, while the male youth stayed out of the labor market and invested in human capital such as preparing for employment and hiring exams, the female youth returned to the labor market, actively seeking jobs. This report provides implications for the youth labor market and policy based on these findings.

This study aims to examine the adequacy of raising the age ceiling for contributions to the National Pension (NP). Although the pensionable age for the NP has increased, the age ceiling for contributions remains fixed at 59. To be sure, there are several measures by means of which individuals can extend their participation beyond the mandatory age gap, such as “voluntarily & continuously contribution” and “additional payment.” However, they are only temporary measures and fail to fill the gap between the pensionable age and the age cap for contributions. In this regard, the main purpose is to examine whether the decisions made through the 1st NP reform in 1998, including the decision to mandatory age ceiling for contributions remain persuasive even now, 20 years later. The results of this study show that the number of older workers who can contribute to the NP beyond the contribution age is increasing every year and that there is a segment of old-age benefits recipients who can afford to pay contributions to the NP even after reaching 60.

South Korea has been ranked 10th in the world in terms of gross domestic product. However, older adults in Korea spends many years working to eke out a living well past their retirement age. This study aims to analyze what effect the expansion of home pension would have on reducing elderly poverty and on decrease the risk of poverty among the middle-aged. Results show the home pension effectively reduces old-age poverty rates for both the current elderly population and the middle-aged in Korea. Furthermore, a gradual expansion of the home pension is found to have an effect of reducing the inequality between the elderly and the general population. The home pension, an asset liquidity mechanism, is more beneficial to middle-class home owners. However, a full-scale expansion of the home pension may aggravate the inequality between the current old-age population and the future old-age population. The fact that the take-up rate of the home pension remains at only 1% reveals the need for a gradual expansion of the home pension, whereby individuals who are old or are in preparation for retirement can make a choice with the freedom to liquidate their homes for old-age income. The home pension should gradually extend to cover the middle class, but those who are asset-rich and income-poor, accounting for 11.6 percent of all households, need to be covered first. This study recommends to strengthen the role of the home pension as a formal old-age income security program, and to increase ease of access for individuals so that they can freely decide to participate in the program.

As the number of elderly people increases, there is a need to expand the nursing home facilities infrastructure. For the proper supply of resources, prior to the expansion of infrastructure, a review of whether the current supply of nursing home facilities is properly supplied by region should be preceded. The purpose of this study was to examine the adequacy level of demand-supply of nursing home facilities by region and to prepare measures to ensure the adequacy of supply and demand of nursing home facilities to ensure the equality of opportunities. In this study, the demand was divided into those aged 65 or older, those aged 85 or older, and those who were recognized for the first to third grades of long-term care. The supply was divided into the number of facilities and the number of personnel. According to these standards, the adequacy and status of supply compared to demand have been verified. According to the results of this study, first, the analysis results of the regional demand-supply status of nursing home facilities are as follows. First of all, the adequacy of demand-supply of nursing home facilities varies depending on how it define demand and supply. Regardless of the scenario, however, the demand for nursing home facilities are concentrated in urban areas. Next, supply is also concentrated in cities. Next, supply is also distributed around urban areas. While the number of facilities are highly distributed around the city center, the number of personnels are distributed around the outskirts of the city. It also exhibits different characteristics by region and type of facilities. Second, as a result of an analysis of the adequacy of supply compared to regional demand of nursing home facilities, Korea’s nursing home facilities are oversupply overall. In detail, the central of the city and rural areas are short of supply, and the outer areas of the city center are oversupply. Based on these findings, this study proposed policy measures to ensure the adequacy of supply and demand of nursing facilities for the elderly.