Is long-term care insurance in South Korea a socialising care policy?

Abstract

This article begins by posing the question of whether Long-Term Care (LTC) Insurance in South Korea is a socialising care policy. The socialisation of care is an application of the ethics of care as a normative principle governing the public domain. Its key characteristics include challenging the feminisation of care, re-evaluating the value of care, and encouraging the social recognition of care. However, LTC Insurance has reinforced the feminisation of care by treating care as a means for job creation, has weakened the value of care by adopting market distribution principles, and has created a hierarchy of care by professionalising care despite achieving institutionalisation to a certain degree. As a result, Korea’s LTC Insurance has failed to achieve the socialisation of care.