From a dualized labor market to a dualized welfare state: Employment insecurity and welfare state development in South Korea

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-93
Author(s):  
Hyun Kyoung Kim
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
Employment Protection ◽  
State Development ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
State Employment ◽  
Welfare State Development

What explains South Korea’s underdeveloped welfare system and recent departure from it? The existing scholarship fails to offer a compelling theory that accounts for the trajectory of the Korean welfare state. Finding dominant theories stressing variables such as regime type or globalization inadequate, this article argues that Korea’s dualized labor market has been a critical factor in shaping institutions of social protection. Its labor markets are characterized by segmentation between insiders who benefit from strong employment protection and outsiders who are exposed to a greater degree of labor market risk. Korea’s welfare system, which is built on the provision of welfare benefits to insiders, has replicated this labor market dualism. The recent expansion of social protection also reflects the insider–outsider division, with the interest of insiders being key variables. The weakening of employment protection, or the prospect of it, led this key group to develop an interest in more broad-based social protection programs. Based on this political logic, this article provides an analysis of Korea’s welfare state development.

Diverging Paths

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Luyten
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
National Level ◽  
Gain Control ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
State Development ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
The Impact

For the Netherlands and Belgium in the twentieth century, occupation is a key concept to understand the impact of the war on welfare state development. The occupation shifted the balance of power between domestic social forces: this was more decisive for welfare state development than the action of the occupier in itself. War and occupation did not result exclusively in more cooperation between social classes: some interest groups saw the war as a window of opportunity to develop strategies resulting in more social conflict. Class cooperation was often part of a political strategy to gain control over social groups or to legitimate social reforms. The world wars changed the scale of organization of social protection, from the local to the national level: after World War II social policy became a mission for the national state. For both countries, war endings had more lasting effects for welfare state development than the occupation itself.

Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cybelle Fox
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
State Development ◽  
European Immigrants ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Market Relations

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the three worlds of relief created by the intersection of labor, race, and politics in welfare state development. Blacks, Mexicans, and European immigrants inhabited three separate worlds in the first third of the twentieth century, each characterized by its own system of race and labor market relations and its own distinct political system. From these worlds—and each group's place within them—three separate perspectives emerged about each group's propensity to become dependent on relief. The distinct political systems, race and labor market relations, and ideologies about each group's proclivity to use relief, in turn, influenced the scope, reach, and character of the relief systems that emerged across American communities.

scholarly journals Business and Welfare State Development: Why Did Employers Accept Social Reforms?

2013 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 416-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Paster
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Development ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
State Expansion ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
Business Support ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Changes Over Time

In recent years, employer-centered explanations of welfare state development have begun to challenge conventional labor-centered and state-centered explanations. These new explanations suggest that sector-specific business interests and cross-class alliances propelled the adoption and expansion of social programs (the business interests thesis). This article presents a novel explanation of differences in business support for welfare state expansion based on a diachronic analysis of the German case and shadow case studies of Sweden and the United States. The article suggests that when looking at changes in employers’ positions across time rather than across sectors, political constraints turn out to be the central factor explaining variation in employers’ support for social reforms (the political accommodation thesis). The article identifies two goals of business intervention in welfare state development: pacification and containment. In the case of pacification, business interests propel social policy expansion; in the case of containment, they constrain it. Business chooses pacification when revolutionary forces challenge capitalism and political stabilization thus becomes a priority. Business chooses containment when reformist forces appear likely to succeed in expanding social protection and no revolutionary challenge exists. The article shows that changes over time in the type of political challenges that business interests confront best explain the variation in business support for labor-friendly social reforms.

Warfare and Welfare

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Western World ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
State Development ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact

This book is concerned with the nexus between warfare and welfare. The relationship between war and welfare states is contested. While some scholars consider war a pacemaker of the welfare state, others have emphasized a sharp trade-off between ‘guns and butter’ and highlighted the negative impacts of war on social protection. However, many of these findings only focus on social spending or are based on studies of individual national cases. From a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, this book addresses the question of whether and how both world wars have influenced the development of advanced welfare states. Distinguishing between three different phases (war preparation, wartime mobilization, and the post-war period), the volume provides the first systematic comparative analysis of the impact of war on welfare state development in the Western world. The chapters, written by leading scholars in this field, examine both short-term responses to and long-term effects of war in fourteen belligerent, occupied, and neutral countries in the age of mass warfare stretching over the period from c.1860 to 1960. The findings clearly show that war is essential for understanding several aspects of welfare state development and welfare state patterns in advanced democracies.

Measuring is Believing! Improving Conventional Indicators of Welfare State Development

2009 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Olaskoaga-Larrauri ◽  
Ricardo Aláez-Aller ◽  
Pablo Díaz-de-Basurto
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
State Development ◽  
Welfare State Development
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