Table Of ContentTHE WELFARE STATE IN KOREA
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The Welfare State
in Korea
The Politics of Legitimation
Huck-ju Kwon
Assistant Professor
Department ofP ublic Administration
Sungkyunkwan University
Seoul, Korea
* ~ Huck-ju Kwon 1999
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1999 978-0-333-69927-0
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Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 Social Policy in a Confined Institutional Terrain 7
1.1 Similarities and differences 7
1.2 Does politics matter? 10
1.3 The case of Korea: an institutional approach 14
1.4 The politics of legitimation and
democratisation 19
1.5 The role of the state and outcomes of social
policy 15
2 Social Policy Making 27
2.1 The nature of the state and social classes 31
2.2 The politics of legitimation and social policy 37
2.3 The role of experts 50
2.4 Towards democratic policy making? 60
3 The Structure of Social Policy 69
3.1 Three types of intervention 69
3.2 The role of the state in the economy 72
3.3 Industrial Accident Insurance 79
3.4 The Public Assistance Programme 84
3.5 National Health Insurance 88
3.6 The National Pension Programme 95
3.7 Continuity and changes 99
4 The Outcomes of Social Policy: An Appraisal from
Two Perspectives 103
4.1 Redistribution 104
4.2 The social rights approach 122
4.3 Still in the beginning? 128
v
vi Contents
5 Conclusion 131
5.1 The institutional logic of social policy 131
5.2 The structure of social policy 135
5.3 The outcomes of social policy 136
5.4 The politics of legitimation 138
5.5 Is it a conservative welfare regime? 140
Appendix A Chronology 1960 to 1992 143
Appendix B Coverage of Social Welfare Programmes 146
Appendix C The Composition of Taxes 147
Appendix D The Simulated Contributions and Pensions
of Two Individuals 148
Notes and References 151
Bibliography 175
Index 189
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
2.1 Union membership and industrial disputes 47
4.1 Monthly income over the life-cycle 118
Tables
2.1 Employees by industry 46
2.2 Regional strongholds and elections results in the
presidential election of 1987 and the National
Assembly election of 1988 64
3.1 Industrial accident rate, 1965-90 84
3.2 Number of people covered by the Public Assistance
Programme,1965-90 85
3.3 Benefits provided by the Public Assistance
Programme, 1990 86
3.4 Number of participants in job training programmes,
1981-89 87
3.5 Experimental health insurance projects, 1965-77 89
3.6 Coverage of the National Health Insurance scheme,
1978-89 93
3.7 Government expenditure of the Health Assistance
Programme,1977-90 93
3.8 Comparison of age structure, 1990 96
3.9 Fertility rate, 1955-90 97
3.10 Dependency ratio, 1960-90 97
3.11 Composition of the National Pension Fund,
1988-90 99
4.1 The trend of income distribution in Korea, 1965-91 107
4.2 Income redistribution in Korea, 1991 108
4.3 Profiles of individuals in the simulation 116
4.4 Details of contributions and pensions 117
4.5 Distribution of hospital beds 124
4.6 Participants of the National Pension
Programme by industry 125
vii
Preface
After the military government loosened its authoritarian control
over politics in the mid-1980s, Korean politics was, yet again,
engaged in a debate on the issue of constitutional reform. As a
graduate student of politics at that time I felt that other import
ant issues, particularly on the quality of the life of odinary
people, were not dealt with as properly as they should be. I had
carried out research on Presidential Emergency Measure No. 3
under the Park government issued in 1974, which, inter alia, tem
porarily waived income tax for lower-income earners. I found it
interesting since it was the only measure aimed at the improve
ment of the quality of the life of ordinary people, while all other
Presidential Emergency Measures were oppressive in nature,
such as banning political debates on the constitution. I started
questioning why the authoritarian government had tried such a
policy, and that was the beginning of this book.
This book originated from my doctoral dissertation at Oxford,
and I have to decide to publish it as it was with a few minor revi
sions. I have two reasons for that decision.
First, I wanted to move on to the next project, which would
enable me to further develop the comparative framework I tried
to establish in this book. I was very fortunate to have the oppor
tunity to work with Gordon White, Institute of Development
Studies, University of Sussex, and Roger Goodman, Nissan
Institute of Japanese Studies, University of Oxford, on the
project of the comparative study of East Asian welfare states -
an ESRC Pacific Asian Programme funded by the ESRC, UK.
The project has attempted to compare the welfare systems in the
five East Asian countries of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong
and Singapore. The outcome of the ESRC project will subse
quently be published with the title, Welfare Orienta/ism.
Second, I hope this book can be a part of effort to stimulate
academic interest in the politics of social policy in East Asian in
general and Korea in particular. The historical and comparative
study of welfare states and social policies is central to the under
standing of public policy, modem government, state formation,
ix
