East Asian Welfare States Research Articles

Public attitudes towards government’s role in unemployment provision in three East Asian countries

ABSTRACT Public support for unemployment provision is essential to provide political legitimacy for welfare policy arrangements and yet it is understudied in East Asian welfare states. In contrast with the proposed unfavourable attitudes towards welfare among East Asian countries from the developmental/productivist perspectives, the study suggests socio-demographic and ideological differences in public attitudes towards the role of government in unemployment provision within and across Japan, (South) Korea, and Taiwan, which differ in welfare production regime and extent of labour market dualization. Data from the 2016 Role of Government V survey of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) was analysed. Findings revealed lower levels of public support for unemployment provision in large firm-oriented welfare production regimes like Japan and Korea, though in which labour market outsiders such as women, younger people, and unemployed workers were more supportive than their counterparts. Despite cross-national attitudinal differences, higher levels of support were consistently found in the lowest-income groups across three East Asian countries. The study provides new evidence of diverse patterns of welfare attitudes regarding unemployment provision in the East Asian welfare regimes. It also presents the need of (un)employment protection among labour market outsiders and low-income groups within these countries.

Forgotten Concepts of Korea’s Welfare State: Productivist Welfare Capitalism and Confucianism Revisited in Family Policy Change

Abstract Understanding the dominant principle(s) of a welfare regime has been the “higher-level” objective of welfare state analysis. East Asian welfare states are no exception, and thus many contributions have sought to understand the welfare state order of these countries. In this article, we consider the development and current architecture of family policies at the center of welfare regime debate for the case of South Korea. Through this analysis we aim to critically assess current assumptions that both original foundations—productivist welfare capitalism and Confucianism—are theoretically useless for understanding the current welfare state and its development. Instead, this article argues that productivism remains at the heart of family policy in South Korea. The repositioning of productivism, however, and the related focus on social reproduction in the welfare state project, have led to most of the changes introduced to the detriment of Confucianism.

Electoral Politics and Old-Age Pension Reform in South Korea

This article explores the political underpinnings of pension reforms in post-democratization South Korea. Contrary to the view of the traditional literature on East Asian welfare states, we argue that electoral competition plays an important role in driving pension reforms, as tax-based old-age cash transfers were initiated by conservative parties, and implemented under the conservative government of Park Geun-hye in South Korea. When older voters comprise the core constituency of the conservative party and electoral competition is intense between liberals and conservatives, the conservative party is likely to promote social policy that targets the elderly in general, and the expansion of pension benefits in particular. Our case study of electoral competition in South Korea reveals that the conservative party’s electoral incentives to maximize their core voters’ support, drove the introduction of a tax-based, old-age basic pension.

Motherhood or marriage penalty? A comparative perspective on employment and wage in East Asia and Western countries

AbstractObjectiveThis study examined cross‐national variations in marriage and motherhood penalties between Western and East Asian countries.BackgroundLittle is known about how and to what extent motherhood affects women's labor market outcomes in East Asia compared to Western welfare countries. We examine employment, wage, and labor income with regard to the motherhood penalty.MethodWe selected the five countries of Finland, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States and applied probit and Heckman selection models using Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Wave IX and Korean Labor and Income Panel Survey data.ResultsVariations between Western countries and East Asian welfare states are highlighted. Married mothers with children in East Asian countries are greatly disadvantaged in employment compared to those in Western countries. Having a child is associated with lower labor income and wages by 2.9% to 4.5% across the countries, but we do not find a significant association in Germany and Korea.ConclusionWomen experience various dimensions of motherhood penalties across countries. East Asian women are more likely to face both marriage and motherhood penalties than others.ImplicationMarriage and motherhood in East Asian countries should be understood differently from those in Western contexts. Marriage and motherhood are life events that are associated with women's employment decisions and work opportunities in East Asian countries.

Social policy responses and social development during and after the unequal pandemic

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has had daunting economic and social impacts on many aspects of human life, but these impacts have been unequally distributed, with the brunt of health and labour market risks falling on socio-economically disadvantaged individuals and families. We argue that the welfare state could help mitigate such social risks and facilitate social solidarity. Moreover, NGOs (and social groups) play a prominent and supplemental role in developing welfare states in the face of the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic potentially raises an opportunity to rethink the current structures of the capitalist economy and the welfare state, and result in more ambitious reforms in East and Southeast Asian welfare states.

The political dilemma of the social investment transformation in Taiwan: lessons for newly industrialized welfare states

ABSTRACT Social investment has emerged as a new policy paradigm in the world. The social investment transformation has triggered the ‘resource-transfer’ game in advanced welfare states. This study illustrates that this argument is problematic when we focus on the SI transformation in East Asian welfare states. By examining the Taiwanese welfare state, we found that the compressed modernity resulted in resource competition. After democratization, political actors exploited a window of opportunity to introduce income-protection to attract political support and votes. As a result, the old-age-oriented welfare state was consolidated, weakening the state’s financial capacity in expanding active social policies.

Withstanding the plague: Institutional resilience of the East Asian welfare state.

As the origin place of the COVID‐19 outbreak, East Asian welfare states have largely survived the immediate health threats out of the pandemic shock but have yet to deal with its dire social consequences. This paper offers an institutionalist account—in terms of the institutional resilience of the welfare state—to grasp the policy dynamics in East Asia. We select four cases under scrutiny: China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, to analyse the major trend of social policy responses in this region. With a systematic comparison of the policy responses, in particular reference to the unemployment protection and social assistance that have arisen as the major crisis responses, we identify striking similarities in institutional arrangements but also some variation in policy approaches. Given the effective containment of the pandemic spread and the comprehensive social safety nets, region‐wide measures such as consumption vouchers, prolonged unemployment benefits and emergency relief aids are of a one‐shot nature that will fall off once this crisis abates. The common trend of social policy responses to the crisis is largely an extension, not replacement or reinvention, of the existing institutional edifice of the East Asian welfare state. However, the pandemic crisis may offer a window of opportunity for gradual institutional change in light of the exacerbating social inequalities.

Social Development and Welfare State Systems in Developing Countries in East Asia: A Comparative Study

This study looks at the state of social development in developing countries, particularly in East Asia, applying a qualitative cum quantitative method, that is, a multiple case study analysis combined with social indicator analysis (hence applying method triangulation), with the aim to study the relative performance in social development and the development of welfare state systems in relation to the level of economic development. The study highlights the need for more research in the area of comparative social policy in developing countries in particular and normative social policy in general—in order to identify and learn from more positive (e.g. win-win) solutions, or positively outstanding cases, in international comparative normative social policy. In the four case studies under scrutiny, governments have scaled up social security coverage and demonstrated high levels of innovation in designing new institutions and the compilation of the overall welfare state system. The quantitative social indicator analysis, in addition, confirms that with regard to East Asian welfare state systems there is a greater number of positively outstanding (positively deviating) cases. The paper concludes that East Asian welfare state systems have their unique mix of welfare state institutions, unique overall welfare philosophy, and even uniquely developed welfare state instruments and designs, while also accomplishing positively outstanding performance in social development relative to their level of economic development.

The divergent evolution of East Asian welfare states: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore

AbstractExisting regime approaches characterize East Asian welfare states as possessing low levels of government intervention and investment in social welfare. However, democratization in the 1980s changed the socioeconomic structures of East Asian countries––leading them to rethink their welfare commitments. The late 1990s financial crisis and globalization also accelerated the reorganization of their welfare systems. Using the cases of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, this article examines the diverse pathways of welfare development in this region. East Asian countries adopted more inclusive and redistributive welfare systems during periods of intense inter‐party political competition. On the other hand, amid less political competition, they either retained minimal welfare provisions or retrenched welfare.

Reappraisal of the political approach on East Asian welfare state development: the case of childcare expansion in South Korea

PurposePolitical analyses of the East Asian welfare state development often stress the importance of the power resource model, in which vibrant coalitions between the leftist party, interest groups, civil society and working-class unions have become driving factors in producing generous welfare outcomes. Challenging such analyses, this article discusses the convergence of the political attitude between political actors who are increasingly homogeneous (supportive) when it comes to the universal welfare state notion by focussing on childcare in South Korea.Design/methodology/approachBy using desk review of the peer-reviewed literature and reports, this article investigates the causation for why political parties with different political ideologies were keen on extending childcare programs and its outcome in addressing the existing demographic problems in Korea.FindingsAlthough the collective movement, especially in the 1990s and 2000s, had given important contributions to the early development of childcare in South Korea, more breakthroughs in childcare features were precisely and rapidly developed after politicians from different spectrums of political affiliations converged in their supportive attitude of the universal welfare. The driving factors of political convergence itself are not merely due to electoral competition or political activism; furthermore, it can be linked to the increased global institution involvement in domestic policy with extensive permeability, which, have ruined domestic policy development maintained for ideological reasoning and bring in more popular policy setting.Originality/valueThis article contributes to the growing literature on the political aspect of East Asian social policy studies, which goes beyond the traditional power resource analysis and makes a novel contribution to the childcare policy studies.

The Less-Known History of the Voluntary Sector in an East Asian Welfare Regime: A South Korean Case

AbstractAlthough the voluntary sector is internationally valued as an integral component of the welfare mix, studies on East Asian welfare regimes have primarily focused on state-market-family interactions, paying scant attention to the long-standing and pivotal role of voluntary agencies in their construction. This case study illuminates this less-known aspect of modern welfare history in the context of South Korea, with a particular focus on the activities of voluntary organizations. The study categorizes South Korean voluntary associations into four types and examines their different contributions in shaping South Korea’s welfare regime, by applying Young’s framework on government–voluntary organizations relations. This historical exploration on the South Korean voluntary sector aims to deepen understanding of an East Asian welfare state regime. It further suggests that current welfare mix debates, focusing on the service delivery role of voluntary organizations within Western European welfare states, should be broadened.

How do Asian values constrain public support for redistribution?

Despite considerable efforts to examining the coexisting tendencies of income gap and less social welfare spending in industrial democracies, seldom attention has been given to such an incongruence in East and Southeast Asia. This paper sets out to examine why East and Southeast Asian citizens do not prefer social equality despite exacerbating income inequality, yet limited welfare spending. Unlike previous studies, which highlight substantive human rights and praise Asian values for its virtue of East and Southeast Asian welfare states, I argue that the Asian traditional beliefs of self-determination, self-reliance, and filial duty constrain citizens’ demand for and supply of welfare services, thus reducing their support for social equality. I then test these hypotheses against the Asian Barometer Survey data. The statistical results support my assertions, suggesting that strong Asian values lessen the preference for social equality, and that income inequality does not stimulate the demand for redistributive policies in East and Southeast Asian authoritarian countries.

Measuring Social Policy Change in Comparative Research: Survey Data Evidence from South Korea

ABSTRACTSocial policy change has been discussed extensively in comparative welfare state research, beyond a mere social expenditure approach. Unfortunately, conceptually and methodologically informed debates have only marginally influenced countries other than in the Western world, leaving research on East Asian welfare states almost unaffected by the dependent variable problem. This study aims to fill this gap by summarizing some key features from the social policy change literature, and by analyzing it for the South Korean welfare state through nationally representative survey-based data (2006–2013). The findings suggest that after adjusting for needs, and disaggregating policy fields, social policies in Korea are not changing linearly; rather, it looks as if “old” social policies are fairly stable, whereas “new” ones have grown during the time under observation, following a path of institutional layering.

동아시아 복지국가의 저발전과 유교적 전통 : 유교국가 조선(朝鮮)의 사례를 통한 “유교복지국가론”의 재검토

동아시아 복지국가의 저발전과 유교적 전통 : 유교국가 조선(朝鮮)의 사례를 통한 “유교복지국가론”의 재검토

The patterns of ‘care migrantisation’ in South Korea

ABSTRACTOver the past couple of decades, researchers have documented a phenomenon called ‘migrantisation of care’, which is patterned by the national regimes of care and migration. By applying the ideas of social reproduction and care–migration intersections to the South Korean case, this paper investigates the interplay of care and migration policies through which migrants get involved for various care roles in different care settings. In the matrix of migration (regime) and care (regime) emerge two intersecting fields in South Korea: co-ethnic labour migrants in paid care work and marriage migrants in unpaid care work. The paper has found a growing demand for migrant care labour to address the care crisis in Korea, but the degree to which care work is migrantised varies significantly between childcare and eldercare as well as between home-based care and institution-based care. The paper not only geographically extends the care–migration intersection frame to an East Asian welfare state but widens its theoretical application to an under-explored pattern of care migrantisation, notably unpaid care provision by family migrants.

Perceptions of inequality and attitudes towards redistribution in four East Asian welfare states

This study examined the effects of perceived economic inequality and inequality of opportunity on individual preferences for redistributive policies among people in mainland China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Using data from the 2009 International Social Survey Program, a series of regression analyses were performed. Results of the analyses indicate that perceived economic inequality is the most significant predictive factor of attitudes towards redistribution in all four states. Perceived inequality of opportunity was positively associated with favourable attitudes towards redistribution in mainland China and South Korea. Perceived socioeconomic status was not found to have a significant effect on attitudes towards redistribution in South Korea.

Democratization, Political Parties and Korean Welfare Politics: Korean Family Policy Reforms in Comparative Perspective

Recent reforms of family policy signal a turning point in the Korean welfare state, as they undermine the welfare developmentalism that is commonly ascribed to Korean social policy. Drawing on the East Asian as well as Western welfare state literatures, this research seeks to understand the politics behind family policy reforms. In doing so, this research argues that political parties were the driver of these reforms, contrary to the conventional ‘parties do not matter’ perspective that dominates the East Asian welfare state literature. Utilizing the party competition thesis from the study of Western welfare states, this article demonstrates that political parties, the unlikely reform agency due to their perceived non-policy orientation, moved family policy to centre stage in election campaigns. Far-reaching changes in the electorate, namely the diminishing effect of regionalism and the increasing importance of young voters, incentivized parties to promote family policy. Thus, this research calls for bringing political parties into the analysis of East Asian welfare politics.

Impact of care responsibilities on women’s employment: a comparison between European and East Asian welfare states

ABSTRACTWomen with care responsibilities tend to reduce their labour market activity and to work part time, even if there are cross-national differences. Empirical research often analyses this separately for childcare and elderly care, and studies are usually limited to Western societies. This article aims to explore to what extent women’s care responsibilities for children and older people impact on women’s labour market integration and how this impact differs in the context of different welfare states in Europe and Asia. The analysis is based on data from a new comparative survey for four cities (Jyväskylä, Hamburg, Bologna and Hsinchu) in four countries (Finland, Germany, Italy and Taiwan). While socio-economic and demographic factors (age, education, marital status, health, financial difficulty and cultural orientation) are considered, multinomial regression reveals that, concerning childcare, the differences are greater within Europe than between the European countries and the Asian welfare state included in the study. Moreover, it turns out that there is no association between caring for older relatives and female employment in any of the four societies. This study demonstrates that the impact of different types of care responsibilities on women’s employment shows different directions and conditions in the context of different welfare states.

The Korean State and Social Policy: How South Korea Lifted Itself from Poverty and Dictatorship to Affluence and Democracy by Stein Ringen et al., and; State-centric to Contested Social Governance in South Korea: Shifting Power by Hyuk-Rae Kim

Reviewed by: The Korean State and Social Policy: How South Korea Lifted Itself from Poverty and Dictatorship to Affluence and Democracy by Stein Ringen et al., and; State-centric to Contested Social Governance in South Korea: Shifting Power by Hyuk-Rae Kim Jesook Song The Korean State and Social Policy: How South Korea Lifted Itself from Poverty and Dictatorship to Affluence and Democracy by Stein Ringen et al. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. 137 pp. £35.99 (hardback) State-centric to Contested Social Governance in South Korea: Shifting Power by Hyuk-Rae Kim. New York: Routledge, 2013. 202 pp. $140.00 (hardback). $49.95 (paperback) A late industrializing nation-state, South Korea was characterized as "the miracle of the Han river" up until the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. And it was praised for rapidly overcoming the crisis, both by international financial organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and by nation-states that went through contemporaneous national economic crises. Scholars and experts attributed these achievements to the role of the South Korean state and the strong government initiatives and intervention in business and markets that had marked its administration and bureaucracy since the Korean War. Scholarly work on the developmental state (Kim 1997; Woo-Cumings 1999) centered on whether the Korean government under the military regimes developed national wealth by largely controlling the big conglomerates (chaebŏl) or whether the regimes and the capitalists collaborated to produce economic growth. Despite the significant attention given to the economic growth of the South Korean developmental regimes, the role of the government in social development has been understudied. However, public awareness of social development, or "improving quality of living (sam ŭi chil hyangsang)," has been growing since the 1990s, when South Korea joined other nations in donating foreign aid and after the [End Page 459] establishment of the National Basic Livelihood Security in 1999 under the Kim Dae Jung regime. In this context, The Korean State and Social Policy: How South Korea Lifted Itself from Poverty and Dictatorship to Affluence and Democracy by Stein Ringen and colleagues and State-centric to Contested Social Governance in South Korea: Shifting Power by Hyuk-Rae Kim are timely contributions to the field of South Korean state and social-development studies. Reading these two books together is captivating because they seem to be having a dialogue with one another, even if they do not directly address each other. Both books consider the ways in which the South Korean government navigated its relationship with multiple stakeholders, especially participants in civic organizations, in working towards a democratic process. I would like to elaborate the imagined dialogue between the two books by identifying some key common narratives and differing perspectives or foci. The two books highlight the importance of detailing the institutional history of the South Korean state rather than simply lumping South Korea into the regional category of the (East Asian) developmental state (emphasized in Kim), or reducing the "mysteries" of rapid achievements to authoritarian state power (emphasized in Ringen et al.). The books share a narrative of "dynamics,""metamorphoses,""mutation,""shifting," and "change," whether it is from poverty and dictatorship to affluence and democracy (Ringen et al.) or from a (centripetal) state-centric mode of social governance to a (centrifugal) contested one (Kim). In particular, Ringen and colleagues, coming from a political science background with a thematic focus on social policy and the East Asian welfare state, contend that social development was gradually expanded throughout the history of modernization, including during the Japanese colonial regime and before, and during and after the military regimes. In other words, they argue that social development did not suddenly begin with the appearance of the universalized welfare state during the conjunction of the Asian financial crisis and the Kim Dae Jung regime. With this argument, they want to show that what matters is not measurement of the capacity of state power but interrogation of the art of state power—how such strong state power was used and administered to achieve a goal of national prosperity, including social development. For instance, they provide data demonstrating that civil volunteerism, as a sign of democratic social governance, was...

Public Satisfaction with the Health System and Popular Support for State Involvement in an East Asian Welfare Regime: Health Policy Legitimacy of Hong Kong

AbstractThe legitimacy of social policies has gained increasing attention in the past decade, against the backdrop of fiscal austerity and retrenchment in many nations. Policy legitimacy encompasses public preferences for the underlying principles of policies and the actual outcomes as perceived by citizens. Scholarly knowledge concerning the legitimacy of health policy – a major element of modern social policy architecture – is, unfortunately, limited. This article seeks to extend the scholarly debates on health policy legitimacy from the West to Hong Kong, a member of the East Asian welfare state cluster. A bi‐dimensional definition of health policy legitimacy – encompassing both public satisfaction with the health system and the normative expectation as to the extent of state involvement in health care – is adopted. Based on analysis of data collected from a telephone survey of adult Hong Kong citizens between late 2014 and early 2015, the findings of this study demonstrate a fairly high level of satisfaction with the territory's health system, but popular support for government responsibility presents a clear residual characteristic. The study also tests the self‐interest thesis and the ideology thesis – major theoretical frameworks for explaining social policy legitimacy – in the Hong Kong context. Egalitarian ideology and trust in government are closely related to both public satisfaction with the system and popular support for governmental provision of care. However, the self‐interest thesis receives partial support. The findings are interpreted in the context of Hong Kong's health system arrangements, while implications for the territory's ongoing health policy reform are discussed.