Drawing on theories of institutional evolution, this article contends that despite the centrality of occupationally based social insurance in postwar Korea and Taiwan (and thus the impression of institutional continuity), the welfare state has in fact deepened considerably. The analysis is structured around three distinct eras of social policy reform in Korea and Taiwan: the developmental state, democratic transition, and postindustrialism. The authors contend that during each of these eras, the institutional purposes of social policy were altered to meet certain socioeconomic objectives. New institutional purposes were grafted onto the prevailing social insurance model, changing the outcomes of social policy. The developmental state era was productivist in purpose, democratic reform during the 1980s reoriented social insurance toward universalist and redistributive principles, and the post-1997 era refocused social insurance to meet the imperatives of flexible labor markets, demographic shifts, and economic globalization.
Ian Holliday , “East Asian Social Policy in the Wake of the Financial Crisis: Farewell to Productivism?” Policy and Politics33, no. 1 (2005): 145—62; and M. Ramesh, Social Policy in East and Southeast Asia: Education, Health, Housing and Income Maintenance (London: Routledge, 2004).
2.
Ian Holliday and Soonman Kwon, “ The Korean Welfare State: A Paradox of Expansion in an Era of Globalisation and Economic Crisis,” International Journal of Social Welfare16 (2007): 242—8.
3.
We use the International Labor Organization definition of “informal sector” here to mean the unorganized and unregulated spectrum of economic activities, the core of which is self-employed workers. In developing countries, up to 60 percent of the urban labor force belongs to the informal sector. www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/skills/informal/who.htm (accessed on February 20, 2007).
4.
Paul Pierson, Politics in Time: History, Institutions and Social Analysis ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press , 2004), 43.
5.
James Mahoney , “Path Dependence in Historical Sociology ,” Theory and Society29, no. 4 (2000): 507—48; and Paul Pierson, “ When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change,” World Politics45, no. 4 (1993): 595—628.
6.
Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen, eds., Beyond Continuity: Institutional Changes in Advanced Political Economies (Oxford, UK/ NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2005), 18.
7.
Margaret Levi, “ A Model, a Method, and a Map: Rational Choice in Comparative and Historical Analysis,” in Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture and Structure, ed. Mark Lichbach and Alan Zuckerman (Cambridge , UK/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 19—41.
8.
Peter Hall, “ Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain,” Comparative Politics25, no. 3 (1993): 275—96.
9.
Kathleen Thelen, How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan (Cambridge, UK/ New York: Cambridge University Press , 2004); Streeck and Thelen, Beyond Continuity.
10.
See also Pierson, Politics in Time.
11.
Thelen, How Institutions Evolve, 32.
12.
Streeck and Thelen, Beyond Continuity , 18—30.
13.
Streeck and Thelen, Beyond Continuity , 26.
14.
See Ian Holliday, “ Productivist Welfare Capitalism: Social Policy in East Asia,” Political Studies48, no. 4 (2000): 706—23.
15.
Gosta Esping-Andersen , Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press , 1990), 27.
16.
Ibid.
17.
Atul Kohli, State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery (Cambridge, UK/ New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004 ); Roger Goodman and Ito Peng, “The East Asian Welfare States: Peripatetic Learning, Adaptive Change and Nation-Building ,” in Welfare States in Transition: National Adaptations in Global Economies, ed. Gosta Esping-Andersen , (London/ Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage, 1996), 192—224; Yeun-Wen Ku, Welfare Capitalism in Taiwan: State, Economy and Social Policy ( New York: St. Martin's, 1997); and Huck-Ju Kwon , The Welfare State in Korea: The Politics of Legitimation (New York: St. Martin's , 1999).
18.
Soonman Kwon, “ Globalization and Health Policy in Korea,” Global Social Policy2, no. 3 (2002): 279—93.
19.
Rianne Mahon, “Babies and Bosses: Gendering the OECD's Social Policy Discourse,” draft chapter for The OECD and Global Governance (Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia Press, forthcoming), 4; see also theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), A Caring World: The New Social Policy Agenda ( Paris: OECD, 1999).
20.
Joseph Wong, Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea (Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, 2004 ), 118—20.
21.
Thelen, How Institutions Evolve, 32.
22.
Holliday, “ Productivist Welfare Capitalism.”
23.
Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993); and John Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984).
24.
Ito Peng , “Postindustrial Pressures, Political Regimes Shifts and Social Policy Reform in Japan and South Korea,” Journal of East AsianStudies4, no. 3 (2004): 389—425.
25.
Chan-Ung Park , “Institutional Legacies and State Power: The First State Health Insurance Movements in Great Britain, the United States and Korea” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1997 ).
26.
Hye-Hoon Lee and Kye-Sik Lee , “A Korean Model of Social Welfare Policy: Issues and Strategies,” in An Agenda for Economic Reform in Korea: International Perspectives, ed. Kenneth Judd and Young-Ki Lee (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press , 2000), 203—45.
27.
Chong-Kee Park , Social Security in Korea: An Approach to Socio-Economic Development (Seoul: Korea Development Institute, 1975); Soonwon Kwon, Social Policy in Korea: Challenges and Responses (Seoul: Korea Development Institute, 1993).
28.
Tung-Liang Chiang , Health Care Policy: Taiwan's Experience [in Chinese] (Taipei: Great Current Press, 1999); Shungkyun Lee, “A Comparative Study of Welfare Programs for Old-Age Income Security in Korea and Taiwan” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin—Madison, 1997); and Kuo-Min Lin, “From Authoritarianism to Statism: The Politics of National Health Insurance in Taiwan” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1997).
29.
Wong, Healthy Democracies , 48.
30.
Thelen, How Institutions Evolve.
31.
Wong, Healthy Democracies .
32.
Lee, “ A Comparative Study of Welfare Programs for Old-Age Income Security in Korea and Taiwan.”
33.
Frederic Deyo , Beneath the Miracle: Labor Subordination in the New Asian Industrialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
34.
Ku, Welfare Capitalism in Taiwan; Kwon, The Welfare State in Korea; Wan-I Lin, The Welfare State: A Historical and Comparative Analysis [in Chinese] (Taipei : Great Current Press, 1994).
35.
Wong, Healthy Democracies .
36.
Byung-Kook Kim, “ Korea's Crisis of Success,” in Democracy in East Asia , ed. Larry Diamond ( Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 113—33.
37.
Korea, Office of the President, DJ Welfarism: A New Paradigm for Productive Welfare in Korea (Seoul: Tae Sul Dang, 2000); and National Pension Service, National Pension Scheme in Korea (Seoul: National Pension Service , 2000).
38.
Stephan Haggard, “ Globalization, Democracy and the Evolution of Social Contracts in East Asia,” TaiwanJournal of Democracy1, no. 1 (2005): 21—47.
39.
Joseph Wong , “ Democratization and the Left: Comparing East Asia and Latin America,” Comparative Political Studies37, no. 10 (2004): 1213—37.
40.
Chung-in Moon, “ Democratization and Globalization as Ideological and Political Foundations of Economic Policy,” in Democracy and the Korean Economy , ed. Chung-In Moon and Jongryn Mo (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1998), 9.
41.
Wong, Healthy Democracies , 135.
42.
Doh-Chull Shin and Richard Rose, “Responding to Economic Crisis: The 1998 New Korea Barometer Survey,” Studies in Public Policy, vol. 311 ( Center for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, 1998), 35.
43.
Doh-Chull Shin , Mass Politics and Culture in Democratizing Korea (Cambridge, UK/New York: Cambridge University Press , 1999), 21, 35.
44.
Yeun-Wen Ku , Welfare Capitalism in Taiwan, 190—1.
45.
Academia Sinica, The1994Social Image Survey [in Chinese] (Taipei : Sun Yat-Sen Institute, Academia Sinica1994), 108.
46.
Hye-Kyung Lee and Ito Peng, “Civil Society Engagement in Social Policy Reforms” (paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies Conference, Chicago , March 31— April 3, 2005); Seungsook Moon, “Carving Out Space: Civil Society and Women's Movement in South Korea,” Journal of Asian Studies 61, no. 2 (2002): 473—500; and Jina Paik, “Formulation of and Discourse on Women's Labor Policy of the 1990s: Centered on Sexual Equality Employment Act and Other Maternity Protection Related Acts,” Korea Journal 42, no. 2 (2002): 37—67.
47.
Wong, “Democratization and the Left.”
48.
Kwon, Huck-ju , “Globalization, Unemployment and Policy Responses in Korea: Repositioning the State?” Global Social Policy1, no. 2 (2001): 213—34.
49.
The total fertility rate in Taiwan was 1.1 in 2005; see Council of Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), 2006 Taiwan Statistical Yearbook (Taiwan: CEPD , 2006). Data are also available from “ Total Fertility and Age-specific Fertility Rates— Taiwan Area: 1961—2005 ,” Population Projection for Taiwan Area, 2006— 2051,http://www.cepd.gov.tw/encontent/print.aspx?sNo=0002899 (accessed on November 28, 2007). In Korea, the total fertility rate fell to 1.0 at the same time; see Korean National Statistics Office, Korea Statistical Yearbook, 2006. The data are also available from http://www.nso.go.kr/eng2006/e01___0000/e01b__0000/e01ba_0000/e01ba_0000.html (accessed on November 28, 2007). In 2005, 9.7 percent of the population was sixty-five-plus in Taiwan, while in Korea, the figure was 9.5 percent in 2006, making Taiwan and Korea among the most rapidly aging societies in the world, along with Japan; see “Government Plans to Boost Child-Rearing Subsidies,” Taipei Times, August 14, 2006, 3.
50.
Hye-Kyung Lee and Yeong-Ran Park, “Families in Transition and the Family Welfare Policies in Korea” ( paper presented at the Canada-Korea Social Policy Research Symposium, Seoul, November 22—23, 2003).
51.
Korea, Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, “50% of Childcare Cost to Be Shouldered by the Government by 2008/The Committee of the Aging and Future Society,” announcement (Seoul: Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, November 30, 2004); Korea, Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, “Information on Changes Made in Child-care Policies in 2005,” announcement (Seoul: Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, January 17, 2005); and Korea, Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, “Information on Changes Made in Child-care Policies in 2005: Increase in Financial Support for Needy Families,” announcement (Seoul, Ministry of Gender Equality and Family: January 17, 2005).
52.
Paik, “Formulation of and Discourse on Women's Labor Policy of the 1990s.”
53.
Lee and Park, “Families in Transition and the Family Welfare Policies in Korea.”
54.
This program was reformed as the Mother-Father-Child Welfare Program in 2002 to include single-father families and other working poor households.
55.
Council of Economic Planning and Development, 2006Taiwan Statistical Yearbook.
56.
Shui-Bien Chen , “Speech Puts Focus on Core DPP Values of Security and Sovereignty for Taiwan,” Taiwan Journal , January 6, Issues Section (2006). http://www.taiwanjournal.nat.gov.tw (accessed on January 22, 2007).
57.
Peng, “Postindustrial Pressures, Political Regimes Shifts and Social Policy Reform in Japan and South Korea.”
58.
David Hundt, “ A Legitimate Paradox: Neo-Liberal Reform and the Return of the State in Korea ,” Journal of Development Studies41, no. 2 (2005): 242—60.
59.
Korea, Office of the President, DJ Welfarism.
60.
Joseph Wong, “ Deepening Democracy in Taiwan,” Pacific Affairs76, no. 2 (2003): 235—56.
