Title of Dissertation POLITICS, SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND THE WELFARE STATE: HOW POLITICS AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITIONS SHAPED THE WELFARE REGIME IN SOUTH KOREA. Based on data spanning from the late 1990s to the mid-2010s, the relationship between the welfare state and political/socio-economic conditions is evaluated along with policy implications, revealing the extent of the political progressiveness of South Korean politics in relation to welfare development .
INTRODUCTION
- Importance of the Research
- Objectives of the Study
- Scope and Limitations of the Study
- Benefits
- Types of Data and the Unit of Analysis
- Organization of the Research
In contrast, President Lee Myung-bak himself famously argued that South Korea had become a welfare state under his regime, pointing to the expansion of the social security budget designed by his government. This study aims to evaluate the relationship between politics and the development of the welfare state, while also taking into account some socio-economic conditions that are considered to influence the welfare state.
LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
- Political Regimes and the Welfare State: Theoretical Background
- New Institutionalism Theory
- Partisan Theory
- Historical Institutionalist Theory
- Path Dependence Theory
- Supply- and Demand-Side Theory
- The Hypothetical Relationship between Political Progressivism and
- Progressive Regime and Welfare State Expansion
- Conservative Regimes and Welfare State Retrenchment
- Socioeconomic Conditions and the Welfare State
- Other Considerations
- Effects of Welfare State Expansion: Theoretical Background
- Coverage Extension
- Poverty Reduction
- Inequality Reduction
- The Hypothetical Relationship between Welfare State Expansion and Its
- Coverage Extension Effect
- Poverty Reduction Effect
- Inequality Reduction Effect
- Hypotheses of the Study
- Political Regimes, and the Welfare State and Its Effect
- Socioeconomic Conditions in Relation to the Welfare State
In general, the aim of the welfare state is to reduce poverty and inequality through extended social protection. H4-1: Parliamentary partisanship differs significantly between progressive and conservative groups of regimes.
METHODOLOGY
- Research Approach
- Model Specification
- Test of Significance
- Variables and Measurements
- Statistical Analysis
- Analysis of Variance
- Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA)
- Data Collection
- The Strengths and Limitations of the Research Methods
In case all the variables are considered to be significantly different between the two groups of political regimes using the ANOVA test). It should be noted that the value of the critical F-score will vary with degrees of freedom. There are undoubtedly two groups of political parties with traditionally different identities in terms of political progressivism in South Korea.
Bias of the government + Progressive (Dummy 1) - Conservative (Dummy 0) Bias in the parliament + Share of MPs from a. This regionally oriented party is considered one of the reasons why social issues have often been ignored in the political arena.
The ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL REGIMES AND THE WELFARE
Descriptive Statistics
- Progressive Regimes
- Conservative Regimes
It should be noted that the increase in public assistance was particularly large due to the adoption of the Basic Life Security System25 as one of the public assistance programs under the Kim Dae-jung government (Lee, 2016). 26 This can arguably be seen as a systemic expansion of the Roh Moohyun regime, as opposed to Pierson's (1994) conception of systemic containment by conservative regimes. Due to the sharing of the social welfare platform established by the Roh Moo-hyun regime, social welfare expenditure under the Lee Myung-bak regime was not radically reduced, even with the pro-market approaches of the Lee Myung-bak government (Kim & Kim, 2012; Lee, 2016 ).
In contrast to Lee Myung-bak, Park Geun-hye tried to build the first conservative government with a pro-welfare approach, even before the presidential election. 27 This emergency budget preparation by the Lee Myung-bak regime was only a temporary measure of social protection (Kim & Kim, 2012).
Welfare Manifestos and Policy Implementations
- Progressive Regimes
- Conservative Regimes
However, during the struggle for the presidency, Lee Myung-bak also regarded prosperity as an important issue. Lee Myung-bak's manifesto was similar to that of his progressive competitor in that social protection would be provided to the most vulnerable sector. Programs such as establishing a one-stop welfare service center, providing life cycle-specific services and basic life protection were part of Lee Myung-bak's manifesto.
Another fundamental change was made to the funding system of social insurance under the Lee Myung-bak regime. Regarding the National Pension Fund, the Lee Myung-bak regime established the Fund Management Committee to improve expertise in investment and related matters.
Analysis
- Social Spending
- Income Inequality and Poverty
- Political Progressivism and the Welfare State
With the increase in social spending, it can be argued that there would be some effects of the reduction of income inequality and poverty. Regarding the progressivism of the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun regimes, it has usually been pointed out that these two governments took limited approaches to the welfare state, which can no doubt be explained by the situation dominated by globalization and neoliberalism during that time. The so-called "dual strategy"41 was the measure that the two progressive regimes were able to take in the wake of the complete collapse of the national economy in the late 1990s.
Although Korean progressive ideas about the welfare state were finally published as a huge plan titled "Vision 2030" in 2006, emphasizing a streamlined economic cycle, from balanced taxation to economic growth and welfare, the progressive regime was coming to an end. , and lose power to Lee Myung-bak, one of the most market-friendly politicians in South Korea. New Labor has never been defeated in an election under Tony Blair since then, winning all successive general elections in 2001 and 2005.
EMPIRICAL RESULTS OF STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
- Summary Statistics
- Checking Assumptions
- ANOVA Results
Inequality and the poverty situation improved through the conservative regimes, except in the late years of the Park Geun-hye regime, when the Gini coefficient and the poverty rate jumped again. The GDP growth rate declined very little throughout all regimes, except during the early years of the Kim Dae-jung regime, which was rocketed from the bottom to the top (thanks to the recovery from the Asian financial crisis). In terms of partisanship in parliament, no meaningful difference was detected between the two groups.
However, ANOVA comparing both political groups in terms of the Gini coefficient and poverty rates shows no significant difference based on political regime. As the variable with the clearest pattern of increase throughout the targeted period of this study, population aging is one of the main candidates believed to have contributed to increased social spending.
Multiple Regression Analysis
- Summary Statistics
- Scattergrams and Regression Analysis
- Regression Analysis Results
The model summary tells us that the independent variables are strongly associated with social spending (% of GDP). An R2 of 0.938 means that the independent variables together explain 94% of the variation in social spending as a percentage of GDP. Union membership slightly (not with statistical significance) contributed to an increase in social spending; however, trade openness made no difference.
Therefore, it will be worth investigating whether increased social expenditure without old-age-related expenditure (the statistical category labeled as old age) can also be explained by the aging of the population. Social expenditure excluding old age = a + b1 Government participation + b2 Union membership + b3 Trade openness + b4 Population aging + ℯ.
Comparison among the Empirical Estimations
- Summary of Empirical Results
- The Possibility of Systemic Retrenchment
Even with increased social spending under a conservative regime, there was no statistically significant reduction in income inequality and poverty. Among all the conditions, population aging had the strongest positive effect on the increase in social spending. H1: The level of social spending is significantly different between progressive and conservative groups of regimes.
Regarding the systematic cuts to the welfare state, it should be noted that the level of social spending had increased even under the regime of Lee Myung-bak, whose political beliefs were based on the market and free competition. Moreover, the relatively high level of government budget allocation for welfare policies encouraged President Lee Myung-bak to proudly comment on the completion of the welfare state under his regime.
DISCUSSION AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Discussions
Political Conservatism and the Welfare State
- Trickle Down to the Top Agenda?
By limiting the flexibility of the national budget due to large projects such as construction, it becomes difficult to address emerging social risks in the future, let alone traditional social needs (Pierson, 1994). Conservative presidential candidate Park Geun-hye's trademark slogan, "prosperity without taxation", was coined around the time of the welfare debate during the regional elections of 2010. It should be noted that Park Geun-hye's conservative regime was particularly focused on the expansion of the welfare state, which likely led to the electoral success of Park Geun-hye, who defeated the formidable progressive presidential candidate Moon Jae-in, who was a human rights lawyer and adviser to the previous Progressive Party regime.
Although Park Geun-hye proudly emphasized prosperity without raising taxes, she ambitiously embarked on a sweeping overhaul of the welfare state that ended up confusing policy implementation and relying only on blame-shifting tricks in the regime's last years, a notorious example of which was a dispute with local authorities regarding the funding of free kindergartens. Running since 2013, these free kindergarten programs were originally designed to be funded solely by the central government in line with Park Geun-hye's election manifesto (J. Lee, 2016).
Political Progressivism, Aging Society, and Path Dependence
- How the Progressives Lost
- Aging Society and Path Dependence
As empirically confirmed above, South Korea's aging society is the main reason why social spending has increased over time, regardless of the extent of each regime's political progressivism. The figures below show the population pyramid, projected population structure and life expectancy in South Korea. Like any other country, South Korea's population is aging and people are living longer than before, which makes it necessary for South Korea's welfare system to improve programs related to old age, inevitably leading to in the increase of social expenses.
It is clear that social spending has increased as South Korea has become politically conservative, in contrast to initial expectations; however, most of this increase in spending can be explained by the aging of the population. South Korea is no exception to the nature of the welfare state dependent on the road (Pierson, 1994).
CONCLUSION
Summary
What all four of South Korea's most recent regimes have in common is the fact that prosperity can no longer be considered a secondary issue. As a presidential candidate from the conservative side, Park Geun-hye's welfare plans were even considered quite similar to those of the Swedish welfare state (Joo, 2014). As evidenced in the Western context, social policy is considered one of the most resilient domestic policies (Pierson, 1994).
Although South Korea has relatively limited experience of running a welfare state, recent governments. South Korea has witnessed a conservative party radically embrace progressive social agendas to maintain its political power and "relinquish" them shortly after being elected as the party in power.
Theoretical Contributions and Policy Recommendations
Policy makers must have a clear vision about the welfare state model, which can solve a number of social problems related to limited resources. Policymakers need to understand the extreme path dependence that the welfare state typically has, regardless of the level of political progressivism of the government in office. Policymakers should always have a clear plan for financing social programs from general taxes or other sources.
Central government must be careful to share responsibility with local governments for welfare state decision-making to avoid accusations of blame-shifting. All stakeholders, including civil society in the welfare state, must be wary of the manipulation of social issues by some politicians who care more about winning elections than advancing the welfare state.
Suggestions for Further Studies
Privatizing Risk Without Privatizing the Welfare State: The Hidden Politics of Social Policy Austerity in the United States. Winner-take-all politics: Public policy, political organization, and the steep rise in top incomes in the United States. The Growth of the Welfare State in Four Western European Societies: A Comparison of Three Paradigms.
The Social Welfare Policy of 10 Years of Democratic Governments on the Road to the Universal Welfare State in Korea. Party Politics and Social Welfare: Comparing Christian Democracy and Social Democracy in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands.
