Child Welfare Expenditures and the Well-being of Children Recently, child care by family members has declined with the diminishing of family size, increases in women's economic activities, weakening family ties and accompanying increase in family breakups, weakening local communities, etc. Also, in a social climate where academic achievements are considered the most important matter in children's life, the number of maladjusted children, outcasts, all kinds of addicts, school dropouts, violent and delinquent children is increasing in schools. Furthermore, not only afflicted children but children who are perpetrators with aggression and lack of anger control, etc. are also on the increase. With the current system it is difficult for the government to provide protection for all those children who need diverse kinds of support. The current size of child welfare budget, in particular, falls far short of the level of meeting the desire and demand for welfare of children. Child welfare budget of our country is just one fifth of the level of that of advanced countries. While as of 2005, the child and family welfare budget of advanced countries was 2.1% of GDP, that of Korea was a meager 0.458%. Although the national income has reached USD 20,000, problems like children's meal skipping and child neglect, which are typical social problems in underdeveloped countries, are not disappearing but increasing in our society. Moreover, the problem of people avoiding having children due to the rise in child-rearing and educational expenses is a more serious issue that threatens the sustenance of our society. As a member country, Korea has to submit a variety of its socioeconomic data to OECD; which has made it an object of international comparison. This means that the child welfare level of Korea has become an issue of international society as well as a domestic problem. From a domestic perspective, at this point in time, when the problems of low birth rate and aging population are becoming more acute, a research intended to diagnose challenges and tasks in child welfare and devise measures to raise child welfare level, is required. The aim of this research is to examine the level of child welfare expenditures in Korea, compare them to that of advanced countries, thus figure out our current level thereof, analyze the relationship between child welfare expenditures and well-being of children, and finally verify the importance of child welfare spending. The contents of this research are categorized into four subjects. First, evaluate the current state of child welfare expenditures in Korea and its share in GDP compared to that of such projects in similar fields as infant care, gender equality and family projects, youth projects, etc. Second, compare the trends in the level of child‧family welfare expenditures by the type of welfare state. More specifically, examine the percent of child-family welfare expenditures of GDP in accordance with the regimes suggested by Esping-Andersen (1990) for 27 years from 1980 to 2007. Third, with a view to get hold of children's well-being, the child poverty rates and converted scores in six criteria were compared among OECD member states. Finally, policy implications with regard to the size of child welfare spending and child well-being were suggested. This research was conducted mainly through the study of related literature and review of existing OECD data. International comparisons were made on welfare policies, child welfare level, and child well-being level, namely quality of children's life, using such information as OECD SOCX data, government literature regarding OECD child welfare policies, OECD general publications, and Luxembourg Income Study (LIS).