Social Welfare Reform Since the 1997 Economic Crisis in Korea: Achievement, Limits, and Future Prospects

CLAIM CONNECTIONS / 9

Where this source is used

• Researchers and public bodies attribute social provision to risk pooling, consumption smoothing, poverty relief, redistribution, labor-force participation, social investment, political incorporation, legitimation, or social control; the institutional label does not decide among these purposes.

  • qualifies · Social context of the financial crisis, paragraphs 3–8

• South Korea implemented major programs including the national pension and employment insurance after democratization, but coverage initially remained concentrated among regular workers and larger firms.

  • supports · Social welfare reform after the financial crisis, paragraphs 1–8

• Ku describes authoritarian governments seeking labor peace through union suppression while employment and social-security protections remained concentrated among regular workers in large firms.

  • supports · Social context of the financial crisis, paragraphs 3–8

• Mass unemployment during the 1997 financial crisis exposed the inability of employment-linked protection to reach many unemployed people and their families.

  • supports · Social context of the financial crisis, paragraphs 9–10

• In 1998 South Korea accelerated employment-insurance expansion from firms with at least thirty workers to firms with at least one worker and eased benefit eligibility, while coverage remained incomplete.

  • supports · Responses of social welfare policy, paragraphs 1–4

• South Korea's post-crisis response included temporary public-works jobs for unemployed people who were not protected by employment insurance.

  • supports · Responses of social welfare policy, paragraphs 3–4

• South Korea temporarily widened livelihood protection and cash assistance after the 1997 crisis to reach some people outside employment insurance.

  • supports · Responses of social welfare policy, paragraph 4

• Ku reports that post-crisis welfare expansion coexisted with higher measured income inequality and relative poverty than before the crisis, so institutional expansion cannot be treated as proof of equal outcomes.

  • supports · Social development since the social welfare reform, table 1 and accompanying discussion

• The 1988–2008 Korean sequence shows democratization, crisis, and institutional expansion under changing conditions; it does not establish that democracy alone caused reform or that formal expansion produced universal access.

  • qualifies · abstract and Social welfare reform after the financial crisis