Development of the social welfare in the Republic of Korea and the challenges
International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)
No.1, 2014
Development of the social welfare in the Republic of Korea and the challenges
(Abstract)
Cha Hyengbeng
How has the social welfare been developing in the South Korea in the process of its economic growth, industrialization and political democratization? Has the social welfare been developed in the last 60 years as its economy grew and national development advanced? The author divides the process into three phases to sort out the evolution of the social welfare in the country and find the three once-prolonged phenomena of lags: social welfare lagged behind the economic growth; such hard and soft wares of social welfare as legislation, facilities, services lagged behind the economic growth; imbalance between the policies and systems of social welfare on the national level and those on the local level. Then he considers the challenges the South Korea would face it the 21st century when it strives to build an advanced welfare state and argues that now it is most important for the South Korea to set direction scientifically for its national policies on social welfare. Welfare policies should not be adopted in view of gains and loss of citizens’ votes. Instead, the direction should be set truly for the citizens and for the security of their living. The distortion to the welfare policies by the struggles between progressive and conservative ideologies should be avoided.