Economic Miracle for What?: State and Workers' Health in South Korea

Abstract

This article is a study of the state's role in workers' health in South Korea during the period of the 1950s to 1980s in which South Korea achieved its economic success through a series of economic development plans. The state's role in the protection of workers' health will be examined by investigating the historical development of two main welfare state programs, workers' compensation and national health insurance, as the pillars of state policies on workers' health. In contrast to the state's direct intervention in economic development, I will argue, the key characteristics of both workers' compensation and national health insurance are the state's minimal organizational and financial costs and the relative autonomy of firm managers. Also, the state first restricted the scope of beneficiaries to the core group of manufacturing and mining workers and then gradually expanded it over a long period of time. I will argue that such features suggest a strong dependence on business by the Korean welfare state programs that contradicts the image of a strong state that the scholars of East Asian states often claim.