한국 복지정책과 복지정치의 발전 : 생산주의 복지체제의 진화

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the development of welfare policy and politics in South Korea and to analyse the changing characteristics of the Korean welfare regime with special attention to the ‘productivist’ nature. In the existing literature, the Korean welfare regime has been often described as one of the developmental states and the productivist welfare capitalism, in which social objectives are subordinate to the necessity of economic growth. Adopting the compartive historical analysis, this paper confirms that the productivist nature had been deeply embedded in the Korea regime between the 1960s and the 1990s. This productivit regime was supported not only by favourable international enviornments but also by the stable extended family structure and labour market with rapid economic growth. While the developmetal state has been dismantled since the late 1980s together with the rapid erosion of the favourable socio-economic-demographic conditions, the Korean welfare regime has been experiencing significant transformations in terms of welfare policy and welfare politics. With the emergence of modern welfare politics and the introduction of a comprehensive set of welfare policies, it is argued that the Korean regime has been shifted to the welfare state regime from the productivist informal welfare regime. However, this paper maintains that the transitory nature of the Korean regime can be characterised as the liberal welfare state regime. Finally, it suggests that the Korean welfare regime is at the crossroad and the further trajectory will be decided by the current turbulent welfare politics.