Most East Asian countries have policies to promote digital inclusion, or simply bridging digital gaps, especially among children of low-income families and persons with disabilities, for social development purposes. However, such efforts and impacts among older people are rather limited. Given the demographic characteristics of the older cohort in Hong Kong, in 2008 only 7% of those aged 65 or above were internet users, comparing to 33% of those in the same age group in the United States. This paper discusses a measure of digital inclusion among people from 6 major disadvantaged groups in Hong Kong (sample size = 2,312), and the experiences and results of training older people in using the computer and internet (sample size = 500). Issues and effectiveness of promoting older people in taking part in the information society are discussed. It recommends that in addition to tailor-made training for older people, software and hardware support, and community organizing to promote use among peers are important to promote awareness and interest in ICT usage.

Full paper: Wong_2009_digital inclusion_poster.pdf

Presentation slides: Kim-Y-M_2009_Insider_outsider Division.pdf

The discussion of "new risk" in western countries in social policy arena started to gain attention from the late 1990s. Literature on post-industrialization and the new risk are based on studies regarding western welfare states and exclude Asian post-industrial societies. However, the process of deindustrialization in Asia has some different aspects then those of the western post-industrialized economies. Rapid economic development, the simultaneousness of deruralization, industrialization and deindustrializations, dramatic change in the family structure, the uniqueness of welfare state systems and the demographic change are a few among the many. Features of new risks in East Asian countries may be different or similar to the generally suggested new risk indicating new implications.

This study hypothesizes that the characteristics of new risk may vary in different post-industrial countries and examines the two Asian post-industrial economies. First, this paper commences its inquiry with a conceptualization of social risk with an attempt to critically rethink the argument of "new risk" and examines changes in the characteristics or aspects of social risk in Republic of Korea and Japan by adopting the concept of 'risk shift'. An innovative methodology fuzzy-set qualitative analysis (fs/QCA) is exploited to examine the risk shift from early 1980s to 2007. In sum, this paper aims to answer two questions: 1) What is new risk?, and 2) Are there new risk in Asian post-industrial countries, Rep. Korea and Japan? Secondary data from each countries governments and international organizations is used for the empirical analysis. Answering these questions contribute to the new risk discussion not only both theoretically and empirically but also methodologically.

Background We examine the effects of caregiving on family life satisfaction among employed women by studying whether there are differences between those women who do not spend time caring for family members and those who do, comparing carers of young children, older family members, family members aged 12-64 and more than one family members having support needs. In order to further explore the significant factors associated with employed women's family life satisfaction, individual socio-demographic background, social support, and well-being are considered.

Methods We use data from the National women survey in Taiwan that 6014 women (aged 15 to 64) were recruited by random and completed a computer assisted telephone interview in September or October of 2006. In total, 53.3% (n=3,207) of them were employed and these employed women became our study samples. We conducted multiple regression models to examine the significance of associations between the factors. The first model includes types of care recipients. The second model explores possible exploratory factors by adding individual socio-demographics.

Results We found that 32.3% (n=1067) of employed women offered regular care to their family members. 87.0% (n=926) of them were caring for children younger than 12, 2.9% (n=27) for a family member aged 12-64, 6.8% (n=73) for an older family member; and 3.8% (n=41) for more than one family member. Multivariate analyses indicate that family care was associated with family life satisfaction of only those employed women who were caring for family members aged 12-64. As expected family life satisfaction was associated with educational attainment, marital status, health status, economic problems, emotional support and hours of housework. Unexpectedly, number of hours of neither paid work nor unpaid care work had significant relevance.

Conclusion This study suggests that the impacts of family caregiving on employed women's family life satisfaction are not one-dimensional. Instead, in order to improve their family life satisfaction, it is necessary to promote both women's health and economic and emotional well-being as well as to offer support for sharing housework, particularly for those employed women who are caring for family members aged 12-64.

Full paper: Chou_Y-C_2009_Carers.pdf

Presentation slides: Chou_Y-C_2009_Carers_slides.pdf

A Great-Leap-Forward style expansion in higher education without sufficient funding from public resources has been witnessed in China in the past one decade, which is believed to be the underlining reason for the growing number of college students in poverty. By official standard, this number has reached four million in 2008. To tackle, the government has introduced a student support system consists of five key components. There is also a rich body of literature focusing on the implementation and effectiveness of these policy measures. However, not much has been done on what student poverty means, especially in the context of China. The policy measures have been adopted to tackle an issue which has not been clearly defined. What is the nature of student poverty, why it concerns many and how it could be alleviated, are questions left unanswered. This paper attempts to bridge this gap by not only conceptualizing student poverty but also providing some suggestions on how it could be measured in the context of China.

Introduction: Depression is one of the most common mood disorders experienced by the elderly, characterized by a loss of appetite, sleep, interest in everyday activities, and feelings of sadness and hopelessness. Depression among the elderly has been linked to a number of psychosocial factors such as the level of income, gender, presence of physical illness, ethnicity, and self-esteem. Given that stressful life events are strongly associated with the level of depression experienced by the elderly, it is crucial to examine the mental health status of elderly persons particularly in multi-ethnic families, the fastest growing families in Korea. With almost 13% of marriages in Korea occur between foreign nationals and Korean men and women, it is important to examine how the elderly persons living with their children and foreign children-in-laws are faring in their much new families with great challenges. This study is thus an attempt to explore the depression level of the elderly in multi-ethnic families and examine various psychosocial factors that play a role in determining the level.

Method: A total of 155 elderly persons living in multi-ethnic families were recruited via a convenient sampling method in Daejeon, Korea. T-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and multi-regression analyses were performed using SPSS 15.

Introduction: As part of an effort to prepare for the entry into an ageing society, many OECD countries including Korea have formulated a number of long-term strategies. One of such plans involves the sustainment of employment among the aged, restricting pathways to early retirement and promoting a more gradual transition to retirement. Retaining old workers in the labor market has been regarded in rather positive light as it is arguably effective in reducing the public expenditures. However, one may question the effective of such approach. This is particularly relevant in Korea where the employment rate of the aged is the highest among OECD countries. Given that many of the aged remain in the market mainly for the reasons of economic sustainment due to the yet stabilized social security system, it is plausible that government strategies to elongate the employment period may be ineffective in promoting the wellbeing of the aged as work itself may be a source of great psychological stress. This paper thus examines the relationship between their employment and mental health, namely depression. In doing so, the paper can provide an empirical basis on which better intervention policies can be developed for the aged in Korea as well as Asia.

Method: Using Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA), this study examines the relationship between the labor market participation of the aged and depression. The analyses comprise of two main parts: first, the relationship between the two is examined using structural equation modeling (SEM) and second, the relationship is examined between the two age groups, those below 65 years of age and the above using multi-group analysis to see if any differences exist in the level of depression between the age groups.

Results & Discussion: The model fit of the full path model was considered satisfactory given that the model yielded RMSEA of .057, IFI and CFI values of .964 with chi-square value of 1645.276 (df=76, p<.05). The findings show that variables that were significant in predicting the level of depression among the aged were employment status, household income, health status, education, marital status, and participation in social activities. More specifically, individuals who reported of being employed, married, healthy, and socially active and having higher income and educational background were found to be less depressed than their counterparts. The result of the multi-group analyses, however, reveals an interesting finding. While other socio-demographic variables remain to have the same effect on both the below 65 and above 65 groups, the employment status affects the depression level only in the below 65 age group. This finding implies that labor market participation does not carry a significant meaning to the psychological wellbeing of those over 65 years of age, which is contrary to the findings of the previous literatures as well as the active ageing paradigm that is promoted across the ageing societies. This study further provides several plausible explanations for these findings as well as both policy and practice implications.

'Aging in place' can be defined as the process of individuals growing older in their own homes or community without moving out to another residential setting. Community living is highly valued by most older persons and is the location of choice. While a majority of older adults prefer to live as long as possible in their familiar surroundings, the factors that promote aging in place are not sufficiently examined. This study investigated the relationship between social support and the planning for aging in place. This study used data from the Community Partnerships for Older Adults Program Survey and the sample was composed of respondents who were living independently either in a rented place or in their own place and who were healthy at the survey time (N= 2,461). Social support was used as emotional support and instrumental/informational support. Emotional support was measured by marital status, the number of living child, and social network, which consisted of attendance of religious events and entertainment activities, and getting together with family, friends, or neighbors. Informational support was measured by the extensive knowledge of home- and community-based long-term care services (HCBS) availability (i.e., senior center, adult day program, housekeeping service, senior lunch program, telephone helpline, home repair assistance, visiting nurse service, personal assistance, and door-to-door transportation). Having more social network in the community and knowledge of HCBS were related to an older age which the respondents anticipated to remain living on their own with regular help. Findings have implications for developing more emotional and informational social support resources in the community. Older adults need more opportunities of participating social activities in the community and become aware of the availability and accessibility of HCBS. Finally, applicability of aging in place to Korea will be discussed.

This research focuses on public preference in terms of the scope and role of government. For example, which magnitude of government is preferred, large or small? Which is the favored government form; welfare state, liberal state, developmental state or social democratic state? This research begins with the question 'What is the proper role of government?'as its analytical core.

This research aims to examine the hallmark of public conceptions of government all over the world. For our research, we used the International Social Survey Programme's 'Role of Government(2006)' survey by the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research ICPSR at the University of Michigan. This survey is generally highly acknowledged for its research value due to the wide variety of survey items, ample sample size and range of nations surveyed.

The outline of this paper is as follows. First of all, as an analytical framework, we will classify the roles of government into economic and welfare roles. Second, making use of survey questionnaires querying people's thoughts toward the roles of government, we will draw a conceptual index for the economic role of government and for the welfare role of government. Third, through comparing these indices, we will point out the dominant conceptions of government by nation. we will also reveal the tendency and hallmark of public preferences. Fourth, we compare the perception indices with the real policy outcomes of each country.

The aim of the study was to investigate treatment compliance and its related factors in the suspect atopic dermatitis patients. This study attempted to apply the Health Belief Model(HBM) to examine the relationships among factors that are considered to be clinically common and meaningful to treatment compliance for atopic dermatitis. It then expanded the model to incorporate additional elements more frequently observed in younger patients, namely family support, social support, and self-efficacy, to examine the relative impact among various factors on therapeutic compliance. The data for analysis derive from a survey that was conducted on 100 Korean patients who are at elementary school age and suffering from suspect atopic demititis. The respondents answered to a self-administered questionnaire which consists of items prepared according to the HBM and additionally included items on social support, family assistance and self-efficacy. The study results showed that additional to elements in the original HBM, parent-child relationship and social support were found significant in reducing behaviors that can worsen the symptoms among suspect atopic dermatitis patients. Strategies for clinical social work services in health settings need to be developed to improve parent-child relationship and social network. Such services can contribute not only to prevent worsening of the symptoms and enhance treatment compliance but also to improve mental health of young patient with suspect atopic demititis and their families.

Depression among older adults is prevalent and a considerable amount of burden in physical, psychosocial, and economic terms. Early detection and intervention do not occur as frequently as it is desired, and which is more salient among older adults of a lower socioeconomic status. As in other illnesses, it is essential to a favorable prognosis for the person having a problem to be able to identify symptoms, seek early intervention, and cooperate with subsequent services, thus any efforts to work with depression among older adults should follow an understanding on their ability to identify symptoms. This study interviewed 113 low-income older adults living in an urban area, and explored their ability to correctly identify depressive symptoms and factors related to identification. The study results show that respondents who were able to correctly identify symptoms of depression were only 20%. Of the factors in the logistic regression model, age being 75 and over and mass media as source of mental health information affected negatively their ability to correctly identify symptoms; people around, staff at various agencies serving older adults and mental health education programs affected positively their ability. Based on these results, it is suggested that such strategies as face-to-face provision of concrete information and counseling can be more effective than delivery of large-scale lectures. Additionally, a future research deems necessary to conduct an in-depth examination of mental health/illness-related contents on mass media.

Purposes: As population rapidly ages, the economically productive population has greatly decreased in South Korea. With this demographic transition, the country is witnessing a steady inflow of immigrant workers from neighboring nations. It is therefore essential for South Korea to receive these workers in order to maintain an adequate workforce. However, Koreans' inexperience in coexisting with foreigners has caused social and cultural discrimination against the immigrant workers. This study explores socio-cultural features that trigger tensions and conflicts between Koreans and immigrants. The study also reviews an instructive example of social integration, which assimilated Korean immigrants with mainstream Americans following the 1992 riots in Los Angeles.

Method and Results: Using a qualitative research methodology, the study explores four factors that tend to trigger racial tensions between native Koreans and immigrant workers: 1) social exclusion of foreigners; 2) cultural values stressing the nation's homogeneity; 3) discrimination of immigrants; 4) lack of experience in multiculturalism. The study also examines the 1992 Los Angeles riots and its immediate aftermath as an example of racial conflict and integration using three categories: 1) the historical background of immigration in Los Angeles; 2) causes and effects of the riots; 3) efforts to overcome and minimize racial segregation. Finally, this study argues that following the example in Los Angeles, racial tensions in South Korea can be minimized through multi-ethnic coalition building as well as education on multiculturalism.

Implications: This study presents three policy implications. First, the study suggests implementing a program of multicultural education in South Korea. Second, South Korean society needs to support national policies that address challenges caused by the growing immigration of foreign workers. Finally, major government assistance including job training, housing support, health care and welfare can improve living conditions of immigrant workers.

The aim of this study is to empirically examine the difference between male-headed households and female-headed households in the factors affecting the likelihood of poverty exit. For the purpose, we used the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study(KLIPS) data collected by the Korea Labor Institute for analysis. We divided the KLIPS data into two subsets, male-headed household data set and female-headed household data set. For each set, we defined the dependent variable of whether a household that had been below the poverty line at one point in time exited from poverty after a certain period of time, analyzed the effects of a series of independent variables on the dependent variable using logistic regression and compared the analysis results of the two groups.

The major findings and their policy implications are as follows. First, the poverty exit rate of female-headed households was about 16-19% lower than that of male-headed households. This result suggests that it is much more difficult for female-headed households to exit from poverty than male-headed households. Second, that the householder is working only increases the likelihood of poverty exit of male-headed households, suggesting that female householders, even if they work, are less likely to earn enough income to improve the likelihood of poverty exit. To increase the poverty exit rate of female-headed households, interventions that make the labor market favorable to female workers are of necessity. Third, those households with more elderly are less likely to exit from poverty than those with less elderly regardless of the gender of the householder. This result shows that unlike what has been known until now, care giving is a heavy burden for male-headed households as well as female-headed households that refrains householders from working. It is necessary that more attention should be paid if the care giving services needs of male-headed households are properly addressed. Finally, it was found that the health condition of female householders has a significant effect on the likelihood of poverty exit. This implies that for female householders improving the accessibility to proper medical services is a matter of high priority in helping them to become economically self-sufficient.

From 1990s the ageing population forced Taiwan aware the needs of the care service for old age people. The state tried to design care mechanism and announced "Long Term Care Ten Years Plan" on 2007. Under the implementation of long term care service by tax, there are care management center has been set on each city and county. However, reviewing the annual report of each city and county, the implementation rate is low especially on the specific care services. In hence, this study stands on social reality to analyze the way in which the long term care policy implementation can be applied to resolve the phenomena of social needs in Taiwan. By contrast, under the implementation might raised more diverse situations and face more obstacles to access to care service? Moreover, what has resulted is social exclusion/inclusion on accessing care service in which living area, public needs and welfare allocation are all need to be taken into consideration. Also, the spatial data will be applied to examining the level of policy implementation.

This paper tried to use the 25 city and county annual report and GIS (Geographic Information System) to evaluate the way in which long term care service has been implemented through the space and area. The findings of this study may helps policy maker to rethink service delivery system and rearrange care resources since the new government is enthusiastic to redesign long term care system.

The unemployment rate in Taiwan achieved 5.75% in February 2009 which was the highest in recent five years (Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, 2009). More than 6 hundred thousand workers were unemployed under this global economic crisis. The impact was more severe for the immigrant families whose bread-winners are mainly low-technical-skill workers or part-time workers.

The Foreign Spouse Care and Guidance Fund, a project of NT$ 0.3 billion per year from 2005 to 2014 (equivalent to US $ 9 million), was set up and supported by the government to provide services for the foreign and Chinese spouses and their families. Therefore the Legislative Yuan set up a target of the Fund in 2009 is to: 'Strengthen foreign spouses' working skills and improve their living condition'.

The aim of this paper was two-fold: to exam the distribution of the sponsored projects and the amount of money in 2005-2008 and to propose suggestion for policy based upon the above analysis.

The Foreign Spouse Care and Guidance Fund expended NT$ 901,393,314 during past four years for immigrant family services. These amount were mainly used in setting up 25 Local Immigrant Family Service Centres (31.5%), after-school care for children of foreign spouses (26.7%), and health and medication subsidy (11.8%). The majority of the budget was reserved for the central and local governments and it was criticised to ignore the positive and partnership roles of non-governmental organisations in immigrant family services. Less than 10% of the fund actually supported NGOs. In order to assist the immigrant family to alleviate the impact of the global economic crisis, the researchers suggest that the short-term goals may 'maintain a stable economic condition of immigrant family and construct a social secure net for immigrant family'. In the long-term, the Foreign Spouse Care and Guidance Fund needs a human resources plan in order to encourage and empower more immigrants to participate in the labour market and volunteer work. Finally, we need to understand the contents of multi-culture, as well as to take strategies of encouraging cultural integration and a multi-ethnic society equal for everyone.

In Korea society, Great attention has been showen to the question of a currency crisis in 1997. After 10 years, we face to global economic crisis again. At that same time Korea Society has been examined a adventure of the neo-liberalism as a solution of the crisis. A neoliberal policy have a lot problem, particularly, it exclude young people in the job market. Surprisingly, this important "young unemployment" is often noted but rarely studied in the neoliberalism and a welfare.

The aim of this article is a analysis about excluded young people in a welfare policy , with an emphasis on a survival strategy themselves like a "self - helf". They can also act in opposition to welfare policy. In addition, this policy is not irrelevant to the human resource development. Because the human resource development link to a individual responsibility, so this issue revealed a lack about resposbility of the job policy.

I argue that it is important to seek to several law for "young unemployment", for example 'young internship', special law of the "young unemployment" and so on, both of which are relation to exclusion of the young generation.

I have a interview with 10~15 persons of 'young unemployment' and I research into a matter thoroughly. This discussion suggests that excluded young people is a particularly managing their life to have a job. It is a strategy in opposition to welfare policy.

A welfare state is a loose categorization that needs further elaboration. In today's academic world we now talk about welfare capitalism and the different, varying types. Esping-Andersen articulated the differences between states by categorizing different 'worlds' of welfare capitalism (Hicks and Kenworthy 27). As most East Asian countries however, South Korea is one example that is hard to categorize. Due to the rapid socio-economic development, it is difficult to address which category Korea most likely fits into. In fact, Social Welfare in South Korea has undergone massive changes in the last couple of decades. The IMF crisis, which had coupled with global economic crisis, has reshaped how Korea views those in need.

Further more, cultural aspects must be analyzed. Korea, along with other East Asian countries put heavy burden on the family when it comes down to care system. Compared to conservative pool of countries where care systems are provided by formal sectors(Germany, France or Italy), East Asian countries can be grouped together in that 'family' remains to play a dominant role as welfare suppliers. This is a very distinctive character that differentiates East Asian countries with the traditional 'three worlds of welfare capitalism' that Esping-Andersen had suggested.

For the last decade Korea saw a surge in welfare spending, but regardless, we may continue to see families as the foundation of the welfare system. The future of South Korea's social welfare policy, or that of East Asian countries will depend on the global climate, and decisions made by each administration. But as East Asian countries change and the traditional extended family structure falls apart, nations will have to face new challenges.

Structures of Taiwanese families are shifting in conjunction with the changing society. As a result, informal support, as one of the important functions within the family, is no longer like it used to be. In Taiwan, more and more children are placed in foster families because of diverse reasons, most of which related to the diminishing of traditional family functions. However, the policy of foster family is not only an issue concerning 'giving the children a shelter', but should be also involved in consideration of children's emotional needs. It is often the situation that children lived with their foster family members for several years but were forced to leave them for many reasons, such as financial problems or policy discontinuities.

This paper firstly explains welfare policies regarding foster family in Taiwan and in the US, and compares the similarities and differences of the foster policies between the two countries. It then discusses how state policies influence the practice of childcare in foster families, and how foster care fulfills children's needs, especially psychological needs. To bring in the experience in the US, this paper proposes some implications for future policy directions in Taiwan.

The purpose of this study is to examine income composition elements and income determinant factors of grandparents in skipped-generation households. Data come from Korean Retirement and Income Study(KReIS). The 'grandparents + grandchildren households' and 'householder + grandchildren households' (N=197) in the total households are research objects. The main findings are followings. First, 75% of grandparents receive economic compensation of care from the parents of grandchildren, and their average of compensation in 25% of grandparents is 373,000 won in a month. Second, 30% of grandparents have jobs and 80% of them are engaged in agriculture and in simple labor section. Third, in comparison with income size among grandparents, private transfer income is the largest, followed by public transfer income, labor income, and asset income, including owners of these income source, respectively. Including total grandparents, however, asset income is over half, followed by labor income, private transfer income and public transfer income. And there is huge difference between 3,170,800 won in owners of income source and 160,000 won in total grandparents. This result respects property gap between a few grandparents of much assets and most grandparents in poverty. Fourth, one third of grandparents don't prepare for their own grandparenthood but consume immediate needs. Fifth, statistically significant factors on income of grandparents are subjective economic well-being, economic supports from parents of grandchildren, sex, and subjective health. Especially, in Korea, there are no legal rights in grandparents in skipped-generation, and thus they don's receive supports from central and local government. Income security policy is highly needed for poor grandparents in skipped-generation households.

Object and background Different occupational status can have diverse effects on health status and utilization of health care services. Distribution of occupational types among women is different from those of men and even if in the same category, working conditions and status for women may not be the same as men. Women mostly work in the conditions of irregular positions, low-wage, and are excluded from welfare benefits. This study looks at how occupational status affects the probability of having unmet health care needs and if the effect varies between the two genders.

Method We used the data from the 2005 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The sample was consisted of 5,768 men and 7,402 women, aged 19-64 and had one or more chronic diseases. We used difference-in-difference z-tests to compare the level of disparities in getting necessary health care between women and men, controlling for health needs of each gender. We also conducted logistic regression analyses to examine whether the effect of occupational status differ between the gender groups, controlling for age, income, education and self-evaluated health.

Results: On average, the probability to have unmet medical care needs for women were similar to men. However, there were large variances within each group, especially among women. Differences in getting necessary health care services by occupational status among women were significantly larger than those of men. In both gender groups, professionals and office workers compared to the unemployed were less like to have unmet needs due to economic reasons. Professionals and office workers were more likely to have unmet needs due to time limitation.

Conclusion Reporting of the overall level of utilization between the two genders only may hide underlying variances within each gender group. More concrete information on disparities within each gender should be investigated and reported.

Party competition theory has been the most often-used model in studies of Taiwan's basic pension politics. However, one major problem with this theory is that it cannot explain why national pension legislation was passed in 2007 when the Democratic Progress Party (DPP) was still the minority government. In recent years, this theory has also been criticized for ignoring social welfare groups who play an important part in the policy process. Moreover, this theoretical explanation merely mentions the policy legacy of Taiwan's fragmentary pension systems and, as a result, the possible feedback impacts from informal support systems have not been considered by them. Due to the above problems, this paper decides to adopts a different approach, the institutional one to analyze Taiwan's national pension reform after 2000. In the process, a specialized term- old age security mix (OASM) was coined to stand for an institutional mix ensuring older people's later life. Through this research design, the study not only broadens the analysis of policy feedback beyond the existing pension schemes but also involves more policy actors for observation. In short, this paper will refer to the changing institutional settlements and relevant actors' perceptions of them to explain why national pension reform had been deadlocked even after the DDP took power in 2000, as well as why the blocked pension legislation was passed in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan in 2007. The paper also discusses the new pension system it in terms of the interaction of the current economic downturn and OASM. The paper closes by suggesting that the study of different feedbacks of OASM might be the key to understanding the history of Taiwan's national pension reform and the future development of this pension system.

Full paper: Lin_2009_Pension_in_Taiwan.pdf

Purpose: A recent epidemiological survey found a lifetime prevalence of depression in 6% of the Korean population. Regardless of type of disorder, only 11.4% sought mental health services in the past year prior to the survey. Efforts to facilitate professional help-seeking for depression requires an examination of the beliefs people have toward methods they may utilize to address the symptoms. This is especially important in the Korean context where people frequently employ a range of methods in a complex manner to alleviate various symptoms, which often interferes with effective intervention for the problem under attention. The present study investigates the general belief systems about the helpfulness of various ways to address depressive symptoms among Korean adults. It also examines the association between experiencing depression and receiving treatment and beliefs about the helpfulness of different methods.

Method: A probability sample of 1,700 adults between the ages 18 and 75 were recruited from Seoul metropolitan area for the study. A household survey was conducted by trained interviewers during a 6-week period in early 2009. Current depressive symptoms were measured by BSI-18, and history of seeking 'counselors' and/or 'doctors' for symptoms described based on the ICD-10 criteria for depression was asked. Respondents were asked to indicate the usefulness or harmfulness of a range of modern and cultural methods to address symptoms described in the vignette of a person suffering from early stage of depression.

Results: More than 25% of all respondents were categorized as having had depressive symptoms but less than 2% have ever sought professional help for depression. The comparison between three groups (had sought help, had a history of depression but had not sought help, no history of depression) indicated that those who had sought help rated medical treatment as helpful, and those who had not sought help rated family and friends as helpful. The latter group also preferred not receiving formal help for depression such as waiting to get better, finding ways to deal with it by oneself or ways to reduce stress by oneself.

Implications: Despite high percentage of lifetime and current depressive symptoms, Koreans are generally reluctant to seek formal or professional help. The group who have experienced depression but had not sought help preferred informal help or dealing it alone. It may be assumed that Koreans are not only are uncomfortable with formal help but may not be aware of the availability of such help. Ways to make various help seeking interventions more accessible should be explored. Awareness of public belief systems toward different interventions will be important in dealing with the expectations of individual person in need of help as well as in designing public education programs or mental health services of diverse modalities.

Aims: To compare inequality in health status by education and occupational type among Korean women by applying different approaches of measuring socioeconomic position - individual, conventional, dominance, and joint classification approaches.

Methods: A nationally representative sample of 5813 women aged 30-64 from the 2005 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey was analyzed. Women were divided into two groups, employed women and homemakers. Self-rated health was used as the dependent variable. Education and Occupational type were used as socioeconomic position (SEP) indicators. Four approaches (individual, conventional, dominance, and joint classification) were applied to measure women's SEP. Age-adjusted prevalence of poor health status was calculated by using four approaches and compared between the employment status. Odds ratios (OR) and relative index of inequalities (RII) were calculated from logistic regressions.

Results: Prevalence of self-rated poor health was not different between employed women (58.2%) and homemakers (58.8%). However, disparities in health among employed women were higher than those in homemakers regardless of approaches to measure education and occupational types. RIIs of employed women (3.01) was higher than those of homemakers (2.07) when the individual approach to measure education was used. A lower proportion of women in high SEP among employed than homemakers seemed to explain this. We found that disparities were higher when we used the individual approach for measurement of education and conventional approach for measurement of occupation respectively.

Conclusions: Disparities in health among employed women were higher than those among homemakers regardless of measurement methods of education and occupational type. To avoid the dilution of the magnitude of inequalities among women, it is important to consider employment status.

Pension policy stratifies the older members of society for differences in life course experience. We expect to see differences in class, gender, health status and ethnicity among the elderly. However, the most significant disparities in pensions occur between men and women. Pension policy is designed to provide high pensions for long and uninterrupted labour market participation; this is more prevalent among men than women. The disadvantaged position of older women has received a fair amount of scholarly attention, especially with regard to the high correlation between this population and poverty

This article examines the gender impact of National Pension reforms in the Republic of Korea. The NP was introduced in 1988 and initially it covered firms with more than ten employees. It is a contributory employment-based system which calculates pensions based on earnings and contribution period. The NP expanded its coverage to smaller firms (five or more employees) in 1992, to those in rural areas in 1995, to the self-employed in urban areas in 1999 and to employees in workplaces with one or more employees in 2001.

In 2007, the Korean government introduced an income-tested basic old-age pension scheme paying flat-rate benefits. It also introduced credited pension coverage periods for child rearing and changed entitlement conditions for divorcees and widows and widowers. This paper examines the impact of these policy changes for individuals with shorter working lives and lower wages, for survivors and for the traditional social protection role played by the family in Korea. Findings indicate that the reforms have some positive features. However, the reforms still offer better value for those with higher earnings and an uninterrupted employment history, both of which are more characteristic of male workers. Moreover, the important income security role played by the family is still strongly embedded in the provisions and the protection available to survivors remains weak.

How do working women of the Puli[1] area regard the economic contribution they make to their families? How closely is their fortune bound up with that of the larger community, and how has the devastation wrought by the '921 earthquake' of 1999 and the current economic crisis affected the region's middle-aged working women? This research investigates the extent to which the employment opportunities of Puli's female workforce have been directly or indirectly affected by their life experience and the economic health of the larger community.

 

Interviews were conducted with middle-aged working-class female workers of the Puli area in order to gain insight into their socioeconomic standing in the home and community. A range of factors at play in the Puli area, including economic, social, and cultural structures, have been analysed in order to evaluate the role(s) these women play in their community.

 

It was found that not only are these working women subject to the pressures inherent to their multiple roles based on gender, home, and employment; with respect to employability, these women - although well suited to the local job market and work conditions - are facing gradually diminishing employment opportunities due to the economic crisis and outside competition such as recent female immigrants and work-study students at local universities. With these factors acting in combination with the difficulties linked to ageing, it is not hard to see that their working conditions are becoming increasingly unsatisfactory. Amid such a predicament, how can such working-class women increase their self‑awareness and make choices that will help them improve their lives?

Purpose: The ability to recognize mental health symptoms and beliefs about the effectiveness of various interventions have a significant impact on help-seeking behavior and mental health outcome. This study investigated the level of correct identification of depressive symptoms in the Korean public and their beliefs about the effectiveness of a range of methods to address symptoms.

 

Methods: A household survey was conducted on a probability sample of 1,700 adults between 18 and 75 years of age in early 2009. The respondents were asked to determine the nature of the problem described in the vignette of a person suffering from depressive symptoms, and to indicate usefulness or harmfulness of a range of modern and cultural problem-solving choices given.

 

Results: About 33% of the respondents identified correctly depressive symptoms. The ANCOVA showed that the rate was significantly higher in females than in males, and in 18-24 age group than other groups, controlling for educational level and depressive symptoms (X²=31.471***, df=7). The MANCOVA revealed that respondents believed primary support and talking to lay/professionals to be the most effective, cutting down stress and recharging energy moderately effective, and seeking medical professionals the least effective; methods focusing only on curing symptoms were believed to be harmful (Pillai's trace=.053***, Wilks' lambda.=948***, Hotelling's trace=.055***, Roy's largest root=.039***). Among the five age groups, the older three groups favored primary support and medical services than two younger groups (p<.001, p<.001), and the group of age 60 and over favored cutting down stress and recharging energy (p<.001); there was no significant difference between females and males in their beliefs about effectiveness of various methods (p>.05).

 

Implications: The current universal strategies for mental health prevention need to be further developed to fit specific gender and age groups. The public's belief on the effectiveness of talking to lay/professionals shed light on the interest of the general public in obtaining information, consultation, and/or services that are psychosocial in nature. This calls for an attention of the Korean mental health authorities on a nationwide initiative to diversify mental health resources as well as to build a mechanism through which individuals seeking out various methods converge into these resources to further mental health outcome in the Korean population.

A number of researches have raised the concern of the affordability of long-term care in industrial countries. This paper seeks to explore these questions: how do the three care systems afford support for an increasing ageing population? What are the outcomes of the different welfare-mixes in long-term care? How are demand and supply balanced? It focuses on examining the way each country has contributed to the long-term care of older people. It argues that the approaches of different countries need to be located and understood within the context of broader welfare state models. This paper also point out the complexities and difficulties of welfare-mix comparisons. This study draws on an identical qualitative cross-national research method on three levels in each country: national, county and municipal. A total of 142 participants interviewed. This study found a precise comparison of mixed care systems remains problematic. The comparison of conditions in this paper, nevertheless, has yielded some findings and conclusions concerning affordability and responsibility. Both England and the Netherlands have experienced retrenchment in the statutory provision of long-term care. "Solidarity" is the core ideology in reshaping the responsibility between the state and society in the Netherlands, whereas in England the responsibility for care between care actors in the system remains unclear. In Taiwan, state intervention has increased, but it has focused more on stimulating the economy and employment, than on replacing the family as the central care agent.

Through the new implementation of Long-term care insurance, the marketisation of care services has noticeably progressed in South Korea. The number of service providers has significantly increased and the new market mechanisms such as competition and the abolition of government subsidy have been implemented.

 

The purpose of this paper is to look at the impacts of the marketisation of care services on service users and providers. In order to explore the issues, semi-structured in-depth interviews with 12 carers, 14 service providers (provider managers and care workers), and 12 care managers, were done in a pilot project area in Suwon city in South Korea, respectively.

 

The findings show that there were strong impacts of the marketisation of services in some ways. Most of all, as the competition among service providers got severe, it was difficult for them to find and increase cases which were eligible in LTCI. Nevertheless, the selective behaviour of service providers, cream-skimming (Le Grand and Bartlett, 1993) was found. Service users were selectively chosen by service providers in terms of service time, gender, and the financial conditions of older people. For service user, this seemed to lead the significant limitation of the access and use of care services in terms of equity. In order to tackle such limitation, the necessity of active intervention and role of care manager was suggested by the interviewees.

Earlier basic concepts used in comparative welfare research do not fit very well for evaluating how care services serve the needs of people. Mainstream concepts like decommodification refer to welfare cash benefits, not to support and care. Also defamilialization refers primarily to economic independence. Economic independence is certainly a major issue, in particular for gender equality, but care is also about other things than money. The basic interests of both, those needing care and those giving care, are not adequately reflected by either notion, decommodification or defamilialization.

The purpose of this paper is to look for, sketch and apply a concept that would suit better for the comparative study of care policies. As such a new conceptual approach, a concept of 'dedomestication' is suggested. 'Dedomestication' is defined as the degree to which people can participate in society, including participation in labour market as well as in social activities, outside their families. When analysing social care the question is whether and how much do care services promote this 'dedomestication'. The concept implies that, even though people (may) have a family life, they also have an opportunity to have a social life; they are not confined to the domestic sphere.

This is a policy objective that could possibly be shared by informal carers and disabled people as well as older people. The notion of 'dedomestication' is suggested here as a comparative perspective that does not separate the groups of disabled and older people and family carers from one another or show their needs as opposing to each other but that instead provides a common framework for research and development of support systems.

The paper will apply the 'dedomestication' approach in analysing and comparing social care systems of the Nordic countries, Britain and Taiwan.

Full paper: Kroger_2009_care_policies.pdf

This paper analyses the relationship between social assistance and poverty in South Korea. Social assistance in Korea which had had a Poor Law tradition for about forty years, was finally reformed and a new social assistance scheme designed to protect fundamental human rights, was established in 2000. Are the means-tested social assistance benefits effective in protecting the poor from hardship? How effectively do the means-tested benefits reduce poverty?

To assess the effects of the means-tested social assistance benefits in Korea on poverty reduction, this paper uses household data from the National Basic Livelihood Security Programme Review Board (NRB). Moreover, to obtain a comparative perspective, a British dataset the Family Resources Survey (FRS) is assessed. The incidence and the intensity of poverty for a range of household types are analysed before and after social assistance benefits for both countries. The results of the analysis show the Korean social assistance benefits do not radically alleviate poverty, although recipients' income positions are improved after social assistance transfers. Compared to Korea, Britain achieved marked success of means-tested social assistance benefits with a high degree of effectiveness, especially among the extreme and the severe poverty brackets, while there are variations between different household types regarding the incidence and the intensity of poverty before and after transfer. Some suggestions are made for reforming social assistance benefit.

Despite its connotation and despite the fact it is often perceived as a measure to abolish excessive state intervention, labour market deregulation has neither led to less state involvement in labour market affairs nor even less regulation. Instead, governments today appear to be much more active and to intervene and change labour market regulation more frequently than in the past. Compared to other developed countries that have implemented labour market reforms (and there are few that haven't) Germany and Japan stand out in that both opted for "asymmetrical deregulation" (Miura 2001), that is, near comprehensive deregulation of non‐regular employment combined with small changes to regular employment (Seishain koyou and Normalarbeitsverhältnis). Enacted in relatively stable economic circumstances and meant to enhance labour flexibility and to increase employment
(the "sunny side" that has at least been partially successful) this deregulation today is associated with rising social costs due to accelerated adjustment processes, insufficient benefit schemes and worsening employment prospects (the "dark side"). The global financial crisis can also be seen as the first major crisis of the newly deregulated labour markets and as the first serious test of the state's extended role as regulator and provider of welfare for those not covered by industrial relations. Although it is way too early to draw conclusions from current events, it is nevertheless worthwhile to look at the policy options available in terms of 'political feasibility' and institutional consistency with national state models (something where we find considerable differences between the two countries). The paper addresses this by putting current developments into the context of changes in labour market regulation and labour policy in the last 15 years.

Today the global economic crisis critically hit all the national economies over the world. The unemployment rates have sky-rocketed in the most of the countries. In a sense, the global economic crisis is testing the effectiveness of the each country's social protection system especially for the vulnerable in the economy. Korea is not an exception to this crisis. The major growth engines in the Korean economy have lied in export-oriented manufacturing sectors. The Korea's economic growth rate is expected to be minus in this year. Many workers are now being unemployed and especially the irregular workers are becoming the first targets for the laid-off. However, the social protection system in Korea does not function well especially for the irregular workers, although Korea officially has a universal insurance system that protects the major risks of all the people. In other words, the vulnerabilities of the irregular workers are doubled from the recent global economic crisis.

This paper attempts to answer the part of the fundamental research question of why the irregular workers have persistently increased and been so vulnerable from the comprehensive social insurance system in Korea. It is not easy for the government to help the irregular workers with various policy instruments such as the regulations of labor market as well as social protection system. Although most countries are suffering this problem, the Korean case is more intense and has structural origins.

             This paper tries to find more structural and institutional reasons for the vulnerabilities of the irregular workers in Korea: the institutional incompatibilities between production and welfare systems. Korea has today an extremely polarized dualist labor market due to the changing industrial structure and a particular production system, which can be characterized as a neo-Fordist production system based on a few monopolized and export-oriented large-business groups with a multi-layered hierarchical subcontract system. A large size of irregular workers becomes a buffer zone for the employment flexibility and low wages in order to maintain the economic competitiveness for the export sectors over the global market. At the same time, Korea has historically constructed a social insurance-based social protection system, which might be called 'a developmental welfare system' in which the government financial role has been minimized and the only workers in stable jobs who can contribute to the insurance programs can be protected.

             In this paper the interactions among the production system, labor relations, and the social protection system in Korea will be analyzed in order to answer the puzzle of the vulnerability of the irregular workers and the limitations of the social insurance-based social protection system from the global economic crisis. This paper is expected to have a significant implication for the export-oriented manufacturing economies in the East Asian context.

This paper examines how the institutions of interest representation have affected the welfare state in post-democratization Korea. This paper argues that the interest articulation and aggregation of welfare issues have been severely limited in Korea, as the two pillars of interest representation in democratic capitalism, the political parties and social dialogue system, have malfunctioned. These flawed institutions hindered the development of comprehensive welfare state and contributed to the creation of a "hollow welfare state."

Full paper: Kim_Y-S_2009_institution_of_interest.pdf

Tin Shui Wai (TSW), a new town in Hong Kong, housing almost 300,000 people, sprang into existence in the 1990s and was named by the media as a city of misery after a number of serious family tragedies and the publicized high unemployment rate and high percentage of welfare recipients. A study was conducted to examine what has gone wrong in the planning and development of TSW. The study involved searching through town planning documents, interviews with key players in the planning and development processes, interviews and focus groups with various stake holders in the community, household survey and street-level survey on visitors and shoppers. While most of the factors identified in the study were directly or indirectly related to planning, the major issues are more related to the changes in the economy and social policies, particularly in housing policies. The original intention of having a balanced development in TSW, that is, a balanced community mix and the availability of industrial jobs, cannot be materialized due to the changes in housing policy, and partly due to the lack of private sector interest in this new town and the disappearance of the manufacturing industry in Hong Kong. Other lessons learnt will be discussed in the paper.

Full paper: Law_2009_planning_and_development.pdf

Presentation slides: Law_2009_planning_and_development_slides.pdf

The housing market in China, the nation achieving the highest economic growth rate, has recently experienced an impressive boom with skyrocketing house prices nationwide, turning in two decades of housing reform from a previously inefficient welfare-oriented housing system into a more market-oriented approach to providing housing. Underlying such stunning changes have been housing policies, recognizing the sector as having a key driving role in developing the economy due to its positive spillover effects for many other sectors, along with China's strong fundamentals, such as robust economic growth, rapid urbanization, appreciation of the Chinese currency (Renminbi), significant real demand and speculation demand for housing.

 

However, the soaring house prices and lagging housing welfare system in local areas have resulted in mass complaints because it's difficult for most ordinary citizens to afford a common flat even by monthly instalment. Overheated housing market also represents possible financial risk. Against the backcloth, in order to maintain social cohesion and stability, and sound economic development, China's housing policies have begun to move beyond housing reform. The main transformations of housing policy include placing the emphasis of housing policies on maintaining house prices and constraining speculative demand, employing diversified regulating measures rather than only administrative measures. Meanwhile, more attentions have been paid to establish a housing welfare system rather than only concentrating on housing industry development and stimulating economic growth. As a result, the recent statistical data has displayed that the transformed housing policies trigger a correction in the current housing market, such as reining in overly rapid house prices, constraining the speculative demand and developing housing welfare system.

Homelessness is a condition and social category of people lack of housing. This is because they cannot afford, or unable to maintain, regular, safe, and adequate shelter. How to help and control homeless is public issue, especially for government.

In Taiwan, different cities do not have the same standard for homeless. In Taichung city, current mayor Hu concerns very much on this issue. He instructed Social Affairs Department (SAD) to handle many problems that homeless people face. For example, lack of food; reduced access to health care; and increased risk of suffering from violence. But most social workers of SAD are female; they are not available in many circumstances. Therefore, SAD cooperate non-profit organization (NPO) to deal with this situation.

I am the director of department of social work at Tunghai University. I also voluntarily to be general secretary of family wellness association (FWA). From 2006, one major work of FWA is to recruit personnel to do temporary help service. We hire, train, supervise, and provide performance appraisal social workers, these workers then work for SAD.

From 2007, we recruit 4 dispatched workers to help homeless. These workers are named "Homeless Investigator", every night they went out on an inspection patrol and provide a variety of services to assist homeless people. They are function as bridge between government and homeless population.

My FWA colleagues and I connect government and dispatched workers. Every monthly meeting I supervise these dispatched workers to discuss their work condition. When analyze the problems the homeless population met, I emphasis positive thinking and strength building perspective. I believe "workfare" will be better choice for the homeless. My major concern is how to help the homeless to have job opportunity.

But most employers do not like to employ this population; most homeless also do not like regular work. They require the much more flexibility in arranging work time and style. So I suggest my supervisees to arrange temporary work opportunity. So homeless people may do some odd-jobs, foe example, they help temple fairs, give handbills to passerby. When some protest groups have social movement, they march in a group. They preferred to join limited and temporary social interaction, where social boundaries are unclear and norms are weak and unconventional. They would feel that they can easily participate.

Currently, we still run this program. I hope to share my experience and findings in this study.

Full paper: Peng_2009_Dual_temporary_work.pdf

Presentation slides: Peng_2009_Dual_temporary_work_slides.pdf

Since the burst of the bubbly economy in the early 1990s, changes in pay practices of Japanese firms have received increased attention both in Japanese academia and the popular media. The focus point of attention has been to what extent the hitherto predominately seniority related compensation practices are being replaced by more performance-based salary systems and what kind of problems are associated with such changes. 

          Seniority-based pay (nenkō joretsu chingin) has often been described as one of the so-called 'three pillars of the Japanese employment system'; the two others being lifetime employment (shūshin koyō) and in-house company unions (kigyōbetsu kumiai). Just as many other features of the Japanese economic system it has recently come under increased scrutiny and has been criticized for being too costly and ill-suited to motivate and retain workers in the fast-changing business environment. Given the high dominance of this compensation practice so far, any changes have a high significance for our understanding of contemporary Japanese management practices.

           There are already a number of important Japanese studies about recent changes in pay practices, and I have also conducted research and published in this area. However, one aspect of recent pay reforms which remains under-researched is the relationship between corporate pension and pay system reform. Since retirement benefits make up a substantial part of overall employees' compensation, a full understanding of the on-going pay reforms requires more knowledge about how changes in pension legislation since the early 2000s have influenced the provision of corporate retirement benefits.

The aim of this paper is to address the influence of changes in pension legislation in the early 2000s on the provision of corporate retirement benefits. Today, well over 80 per cent of Japanese companies have some sort of retirement benefit plan, and most big companies pay pensions as well as lump-sum benefits. With regard to the number of participants and the amount of assets under management, by far the most important occupational pension schemes have so far been defined benefit (DB) plans. These plans are employer-sponsored retirement schemes where final payouts are linked to employment tenure and the development of wages over time. The significant point is that these plans have a similar incentive structure as seniority-based wages because the benefits are directly linked to employment tenure and rise progressively over time.

        With the last occupational pension reform enacted in October 2001 and April 2002, employers were given new options for company pension plans, most significantly so-called Japanese-style 401(k) defined contribution (DC) plans. These new plans have no longer a seniority-oriented incentive structure and the investment risks are born by employees. Against the background of these new legal options, a number of questions arise which will be tackled in this paper:

• How have companies utilized the new options in the reform of their pay systems?
• What are the interactions between corporate pension and pay system reforms? Specifically, how have changes in corporate governance (for example in terms of shareholder influence) and the labour unions impacted the restructuring of corporate pension systems?
• Are there significant differences among different sectors or between corporate groups and independent companies?
• What are the likely effects of the current global financial crisis?

Methodologically, this research is based on the analysis of secondary statistical data and primary data gained through semi-structured interviews with Japanese pension experts, human resource managers, labour union officials, academics, and bureaucrats in April 2009.

The primary focus of this study is to examine the characteristics of the asset poor and to empirically investigate those factors affecting the likelihood of the asset poor's poverty exit and entry. The 2nd wave through 8th wave data from KLIPS were used for analysis. The asset poverty lined of 50% of the household net asset was set up so that households below 50% are classified as the asset poor. The characteristics of the asset poor were examined in a static manner by analyzing only the 8th wave KLIPS data.. To investigate those factors affecting the likelihood of asset poor's poverty transferral with a dynamic perspective, the authors employed two survival analysis methods, the life table analysis and the Time-dependent Cox regression analysis. Based on the findings, some recommendations were made for future policy efforts to support the asset poor and for the current poverty policies as well.. In specific, if the 'Individual Development Account' is to be initiated in the future, it would be essential to build a systematic model to utilize accumulated asset by enhancing job competencies and ability to gain a decent job.

Presentation slides: Kang_Yoo_2009_asset_poor.pdf

Japan is one of the countries being hit hardest by the global financial crisis. The layoff of temporary workers attracts public attention. However, there also exists a working class called "the working poor" in Japan, whose working conditions remain the same as those of the temporary workers. A high percentage of "the working poor" is dominated by divorced or single mothers and their children. In this presentation, several issues related to the working poor are addressed, including the situations the women face in everyday life.

The annual income of the working poor is estimated to be less than one half of the average general household income in Japan.　Consequently most of them are pushed towards the poverty line. The presenter emphasizes politically thorny issues, such as woman's labor policy and delays in the maternal and child welfare measures. These issues have not been solved by the "Work First" model - the recent working aid package proposed by the Japanese government. It is obvious that public assistance and wages in the labor market are inadequate for the working poor. Inevitably most mothers are forced to take care of their child/children and, at the same time, work for a livelihood. These conditions deprive the children of such families of both the opportunity for a higher education and of adequate medical care. The vicious sequence is likely to ensue as generations of the poverty continue to exist.

The presenter proposes that rectification of the current labor policy with regard to child care plans should be implemented in order to alleviate poverty issues. She will also discuss some issues on education in connection with welfare policy.

Full paper: Yoshinaka_2009_working_poor.pdf

Focusing on women who have experienced sex trafficking, and who are excluded from the government legal protection of trafficked persons. This paper is based upon findings generated by interviews with trafficked women, interviews with various professionals involved in the field, in which working on combating sex trafficking.

The majority of sex trafficked persons are women and, in these interviews and accounts, women from China in my study were trafficked because One Child Family policy and male supremacy culture. Therefore, women were sacrificed to work at young age to support the family financial. We raise the issue of gender inequality in the process women are lured to be trafficked.

The paper will also explore the difficulties faced by women who have experienced forms of trafficking harm as they are arrested by the Taiwan authorities. Although Taiwan has passed the Law of Combating Human Trafficking on 23rd January 2009, we argue that the current definition of sex trafficking is leaky, and women who are trafficked may be not identified as victims. We will use the cases in our study to discuss if women can be identified as victims under the Law of Combating Human Trafficking. This paper aims to explore the social exclusion in which trafficked women seek and/or receive help and assistance in Taiwan.

Full paper: Lin_Ku_2009_gender_inequality.pdf

This paper leverages three years of research - including a year of empirical fieldwork - to provide a comprehensive and critical account of Japan's new policies for socially excluded youth. Identified as 'NEETs' for being neither in education, employment or training, 15 to 34 year old non-employed young people were constructed as a 'social problem' in 2004 and, after a ferocious public debate, two extraordinary programmes were enacted for this group, one in 2005 and another in 2006. Known as the Youth Independence Camp and the Youth Support Station, these novel measures represent Japan's first public services for the explicit purpose of engaging and socially including young adults who have fallen outside education and the labour markets.

   Yet the details of such new youth policies remain elusive: Who was it exactly that promoted them in the first place, and why was the category 'NEET' so crucial in the policy process? How was it even possible to make tangible policies for a group that the public came to see as 'lazy' and undeserving, and how is 'social inclusion' carried out in practice?

By investigating, in turn, the three levels of youth policy discourse, policy-making and policy delivery, this paper uncovers a nuanced reality where 'youth' are not necessarily all that young, where 'employment' measures transform into welfare services, where 'disciplinarian' approaches morph into lenient ones, and where 'social inclusion' indeed produces exclusion as its side effect. Yet, behind such a thick web of paradoxes one does discern an emerging approach to social inclusion that relies upon local face-to-face networks, gradual confidence-building activities and alternative jobs. As the paper argues, it is precisely in such practices and realities at sites of youth support that the meaning of 'inclusion' and 'exclusion' - in its particular Japanese context but not without implications to other East Asian societies - is most vividly revealed and rendered accessible to analysis.

The last three decades have witnessed tremendous social, political and economic changes in China since the adoption of the open-door policy in the late 1970s. A market economy was adopted as a replacement of the planned economy to allocate resources in the country. Since then, however, sociologists' attention has been drawn to social inequality, as notable disparities are noticed across the country between urban and rural areas, between regions and between different social groups. Given that much of the public good attached to education has been displaced in the transformation from a planned economy to a market economy, the problem of educational inequality has been looked at within the context of social equity and equality.

This article employs social exclusion theory as the analytical framework to examine education inequalities in China within the context of the transition from a planned economy to a market economy. It starts with a brief introduction of social exclusion theory. By using Sen's approach to analyze educational inequities in China, it then argues that four types of inequalities, namely constitutive deprivation, instrumental deprivation, active exclusion and passive exclusion, can be identified in China's education. It closes by considering the adverse effect of existing social exclusion on education inequality, despite the fact that the Chinese government has made effort to confront the increasing pressure from educational inequalities.

The purpose of the panel is to explore the impact of the restructuring of political economy on working/family life in contemporary Japan and China. Although the economic conditions in Japan and mainland China since the 1990s make a sharp contrast, Japan suffering from the prolonged economic setback represented by the term 'the lost decade' and China having rapidly expanded its national economy, both countries have undergone a process of economic restructuring to optimize their economic systems in what has become an increasingly globalized economic environment. In both Japan and mainland China, this economic restructuring at the national level has entailed some changes in the pattern of working and family life that individuals are required to adopt/negotiate in different areas of their own lives, while calling for revision of family policy and labour-related regulations. The panel tries to elucidate the ways in which economic restructuring has transformed the conditions and patterns of working/family life for individuals by discussing different aspects of the labour market and family life in Japan and mainland China.   

 

Concretely, Takeda's paper examines, by employing discourse analysis, the logic of family policy revision conducted under the name of 'structural reform of the family' in the early 2000s in Japan, and in so doing, discusses the recalibration of the working/family life of individuals (in particular, women) in response to economic restructuring based on neoliberal principles introduced as measures to tackle the economic setback since the 1990s. Yamashita's paper explores the impact of the changing structure of the Japanese labour market, - increasing dualism and income inequality - on women's life in different age cohorts. Liu focuses on narratives of working life and redundancy recounted in life history interviews with women workers in Nanjing, China. Drawing on feminist perspectives of gender and global economic changes, Lieu examine the micro processes which underpinned the outcome of China's economic restructuring, and through a gender-based analysis she shows how and why these women in particular have lost out.

Social policy planning and social work skill have strong relationship. For example, if you plan a social policy for persons with disabilities at municipal level, you should work for collecting information on the needs of persons with disabilities. In that case, the skill of social work would be so important to identify their "real" needs. When it comes to Japan, however, social policy planning and social work for persons with disabilities are disconnected. That is partially because many bureaucrats in charge of social policy planning are not trained and skillful not only in terms of social policy planning but also social work. In most cases, generalist bureaucrats have to manage social policy planning process without receiving any specific training.

This paper focuses on how effective trainings can bridge such a gap, with showing an example of a training course for municipal officials in charge of social policy planning for persons with disabilities which was conducted by a prefecture government and was facilitated and supervised by the author. Action research was adopted for the research design methodology. Findings show that many participants were less confident about what they did and needed empowerment training. It is also found that the action research methodology is useful for making the curriculum of this kind of training fit for the participants with different skills and backgrounds. Finally, it is also mentioned that this training successfully led some municipal officials to make better social policy planning into a reality in their respective municipalities.

Presentation slides: TAKEBATA_2009_disability_policy.pdf

This study aims to offer policy implications for improving the performance of self-sufficiency program agencies and the effectiveness of the self-sufficiency program by analyzing the effect of networks. To attain this purpose, the collaborative network structures of 56 local self-sufficiency centers in Seoul, Busan, and Northern Kyongsang Province are identified. And I assess the effectiveness of the network.

The networks are divided along two dimensions. One dimension concerns the network actors and the other concerns the objects exchanged within the networks. As a result the networks are categorized into five types: 'center only information network', 'center only resource network', 'center-local government information network', 'center-local government resource network', and 'center only project network'. I also measure the propensities of these networks in both directions: in and out.

Each network is analyzed by social network analysis methods including sociograms and matrix calculation. The results of the analysis show that the network activity on outward does not influence the performance of self-sufficiency program agencies but the network activity on inward does influence the performance, especially information exchange network does. And 'center only project network' influence only the outcomes of the local self-sufficiency centers' program implementation. The last thing to find is 'center-local government network' does not explain the performance of the centers better than 'center only network'. That means the information and resources which the local government gave to the centers didn't help the performance of centers to improve.

According to these findings, I conclude the network activity is very important to explain the differences of the performance of the centers and to improve the performance of the self-sufficiency program. Finally it is recommended that the high-level local governments and the higher local self-sufficiency centers had better have the role of network hub for both the performance of the self-sufficiency program agency and the effectiveness of the self-sufficiency program.

Under the exhibition of development on the urban village of Taipei, Sheh-Tzyy territory, there are high proportion rate of low incomes, criminal and marriage migration, however, there is no welfare institution set up in this area. The distance of service might takes over 40 minutes by bus. All disadvantaged situation encouraged researchers to work with community over 6 years.

This paper tries to discuss how far the authors as community actors to enter disadvantaged territory and tried to cooperate with local government, public service centre, non-profit organization, university and community organization to provide services, raise funds and, finally, empower the community members to participate and design community vision. The debates of this paper will goes on how far the reluctant community members to against the action of authors on providing service. Also, the transition of the roles on community members from opposition gradually becomes cooperation will be discussed. Finally, in what ways the community actors cooperate with the members to tackle spatial exclusion will be evaluated.

Presentation slides: Chang_2009_community-based_service.pdf

The "Care Voucher for the Aged" program introduced in May, 2007 is the first demand-side subsidy policy that aims to extend user choice and formation of the social service market. The implementation of this voucher program acted as a catalyst that triggered the burning discourse on the privatization and commercialization of social services in Korea. However, there has been a lack of empirical research to identify the operation of market logic when introduced in the service field in Korea.    

As a case study in the field of policy implementation research, this study focuses on how the logic of consumer choice and provider competition operates on the front line of policy processing. To find the implementation process of the program, 39 interview data were analyzed, including voucher users, care workers, social workers in 4 agencies and local public officers in one of the district in Seoul, and relevant officials from the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family affairs and the Center for Social Service Management.

The main results are as follows: In the level of policy implementation, user choice and competition, which was the main logic behind the implementation of the voucher program, did not occur as expected by policy makers. Instead of the user choosing his/her provider, it was found that the providers were choosing its users. Secondly, the case study found that providers have formed a caucus, called the 'providers cooperation committee' which allocated the local users equally amongst the providers. In this process, local public officers have supported the committee by providing them with a list of users. Such results may be interpreted as a habitual execution from the tradition of supply-side subsidy, rather than the way of implementation in the market system. Thirdly, although voucher users could not choose their preferred agency in the first stage of service, some other choices exists so that users may choose their preferred care-giver and time for service. Finally, the change of agency and care-giver in the way of delivering services were observed. Since the implementation of the provider support system, and the rules and routines accumulated from such practices, have been gradually affecting the characteristics of demand-side subsidy.  

This study opens a window for discussion focusing on the meaning of choice as policy implication and user practice, and the nature of the relationship between the government and private service agency in the social service market.  

Improving the provision of long-term care is one of the big challenges for the welfare system in many advanced economies including Germany and Japan. We have to face the fact of an aging population and financial problems in supporting the growing number of people in need of care. And we have to acknowledge that families particularly women can no longer be the main institutions responsible for taking care of their elderly, sick or disabled relatives. Therefore, new solutions for the allocation of resources and the provision of good quality care have to be developed.

In our presentation, we address the level of organisations providing care and show some innovative ways in dealing with the new demands on the provision of care. Even though different institutional frameworks and regulations have a strong impact on the development of care services and the quality of care in both countries, there are many similar ways in which care providers try to restructure their organisation and to improve the quality of care provided by their care workers.Using the empirical evidence of our case studies in both countries and the results of analysis of survey data for Japanese care workers, we address the following questions;

• What are the organisational innovations the providers of elderly care services are developing to respond to new demands?
• How can these innovations improve the provision of elderly care?
• What knowledge is needed in improving the quality of care?
• What management practices are effective for developing the knowledge base among care workers?

In spite of different institutional frameworks, we find many similarities in the direction of change in Germany and Japan which might be worth exploring for other counties to find effective solutions.

Presentation slides: Goldmann_Nishikawa_2009_elderly_care.pdf

Several theorists - most notably Holliday - have argued that social policy in East Asia can be seen as distinctive because of its productive intent. This claim has not been exposed to sustained comparative empirical examination, partly because typologies of welfare are still largely drawn on the basis of measures of the protective, rather than productive, intent of welfare policies and partly because of a paucity of comparable data on East Asian nations. Here we present a classification of welfare state types that incorporates both the productive and protective elements of social policy. Using fuzzy set ideal-type analysis we explore data for a sample of 23 OECD countries in three time periods - 1994, 1998 and 2003 - including two key East Asian nations (Japan and South Korea). Our findings provide no evidence for the claim that East Asian nations offer a distinctive focus on productive welfare. Indeed, we argue that the USA provides the best example of the productive welfare type and, moreover, that Korea and Japan have moved away from this model in recent years. Meanwhile, we find that some other nations - notably the Scandinavian states - have begun to combine the productive and protective elements of welfare in a way that contradicts earlier claims that the two represent mutually exclusive directions for welfare states.

Full paper: Hudson_Kuhner_2009_productive_welfare.pdf

The Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s has provided not only the threats to the national economies in the region but also the unique opportunities to reform their welfare provisions. But the path that each country has taken in response to the increasingly globalised pressure is not necessarily uniform and in fact reflects a significant degree of diversity. This paper traces this development and examines whether countries in the region begin to develop their social policy provisions beyond the functional imperatives for economic development. Whether or not high levels of welfare spending harms economic performance has long been at the centre of debate within the welfare state development literature both at a theoretical and empirical level. While there has been no agreement on this debate, the emergence of the welfare state in East Asia with low levels of social spending and high economic growth rates with relatively good welfare outcomes has led some commentators to argue that the countries in the region provide a unique model of welfare arrangements, one of the most convincing, to date, has been the East Asian Productivist Welfare Regime. However, the productivist notion of welfare state development in East Asia has been increasingly problematic. Taking the cases of Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, this essay aims to contribute to this debate both at the theoretical and empirical level by critically examining the theoretical usefulness of the productivist/developmental approach and testing the hypothesis of whether or not social policy in the region is still largely framed by economic necessity.

This paper is to study the effect of globalization on welfare expenditures, especially expenditures for labor market programs, in three welfare regimes and the so-called East -Asian welfare regime.

There is generally a large body of researches(Sainsbury, 1999; Shin, 2000; Offe, 1987; Martin, 1998; Lee, 2003) insisting that globalization drove welfare states to active programs, so-called, 'back-to-work' programs(i.e. job training) out of passive programs for supporting the unemployed . However, empirical studies did not arrive to a consensus.

This paper is to analyze whether all the welfare states of the advanced industrial world, coping with globalization, directed their efforts towards active programs from passive ones. If not, how differently did they adapt to globalization? Which states spent more on active labor market programs and which states did not?

Also, what was the response of the East -Asian welfare regime to globalization? How did it differ from mature welfare states?

In this paper, seventeen OECD member states including Korea and Japan will be classify into the 'three welfare regimes'(Esping-Anderson, 1990) and East-Asian welfare regime for the institutional differences among welfare states to be considered. And we will perform multiple regression analyses to find out the effect of globalization on expenditures for labor market programs.

This paper tries to show how differently the East Asian welfare regime behaved in comparison with traditional welfare states in coping with globalization and to focus efforts on elaborating the analysis methods in order to assess an independent effect of globalization on expenditures on labor market programs.

 

 

<Reference>

 

Esping-Andersen. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton University Press.

Lee, Seok-Won. (2003). "Globalization and Welfare Policy: Empirical Analysis on OECD countries". Korean Policy Studies Review. vol. 12-1.

Martin, John, P. (1998). "What works among active labour market policies: Evidence from OECD countries' experiences". Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Papers 35. Paris: OECD.

Offe, Claus. (1987). "Democracy against Welfare State?". Political Theory, vol. 15-4. 

Sainsbury, Roy. (1999). "The Aims of Social Security", in John Ditch, Introduction to Social Security: Policies, Benefits and Poverty. London: Routledge.

Shin, Dong-Myun. (2000). "Economic policy and social policy: policy-linkages in an era of globalization". International Social Welfare. vol. 9.

Policy initiatives for digital inclusion have been championing by Asia's newly industrializing economies (NIEs) recently, with the spill-over effects of promoting human rights, economic social and cultural rights in particular. Human rights is undoubtedly both a global and local issue. The advocacy for human rights is now situated in the (de-) globalization process, as well as the crisis of it since late 2008. This paper addresses to the interfacing and synergetic processes of human rights and digital inclusion in the information age in Asia and beyond.        

Thanks to the Information and communication technologies (ICT), the real offering, and challenge, of the Internet, is evolving around different (cable, wireless and satellite) modal of communications, representing both micro as well as mass media functioning. Here, the restructuring and crisis of global economy are juxtaposing many nation states' project for the building up of a ubiquitous network society: e-government and e-commerce projects at large, so as to strengthen their global competitiveness.  But the critical question is: What will be the new mode of human rights advocacy, with a new configuration of power relations, developmental tensions and contradictions between the strong state and emerging (global) civil society; and in what way can ICT aid socio-political (e-) mobilization in and beyond cyberspace to shape social development?  This paper examines transnational advocacies networks (TANs) and ICTs in the promotion of human rights at global-local level, with case illustrations.

The interest towards the social enterprise has been growing in Korea. The law on the Social Enterprise was established in 2007, and about 150 social enterprises have been created in the diverse areas including the social service.

However the government dominant drive of the social enterprises lets a deep concern about the possible distortion or retrenchment towards a welfare state since the scope of the public welfare development is still weak and the social service market is not yet well formed.

The purpose of the study is to manifest the possibility and limit of the social enterprises for the development of Korean welfare state, and to present the proper application of the social enterprises based on the critical research on the realization of the social enterprise in a Korea context.

It is expected through this study that I can show the guideline and the policy direction towards utilizing the social enterprise by the Korean government and the Korean NGOs.

Presentation slides: Lee_T-S_2009_social_enterprise.pdf

In recent years public concerns on social enterprises are being greatly increased, as a way of providing the socially disadvantaged with stable jobs and appropriate social services. Since the late 1990s, the Korean government has enforced diverse kinds of social programs, in order to offer jobs and social services to the socially disadvantaged, ranging from the self-help community programs to the Social Job Creating Initiative (SJCI). In particular, the Rho Moo-hyun Administration (2003-2007) inaugurated large-scale interdepartmental SJCIs to narrow income inequality between the people.

However, despite the large amount of the government's financial subsidies, the SJCI has failed to create stable and decent jobs for the socially disadvantaged. Thus, since 2007, the Korean government has moved social policy priority from the SJCI to the policy of supporting and fostering social enterprises, with the aim of providing the socially deprived with more stable and decent jobs. In July 2007 the Act to Support and Forster Social Enterprises was enforced to authenticate promising social enterprises and offer government subsides to certified social enterprises. In particular, the centre-right Lee Myung-bak Administration (2008-present) advocated the invigoration of social enterprises as one of its 100 national agendas that will be accomplished in its five-year term. Moreover, with the aggravating economy since the latter half of 2008, the importance of social enterprises as a source of job creation has been doubled.

But, despite the growing importance of social enterprises in providing the socially disadvantaged stable jobs, the government's efforts to support social enterprises are being confronted with diverse problems in terms of certifying, subsidizing, monitoring, and evaluating social enterprises. The administrative system to support social enterprises also reveals weak points, due to its diffusion and fragmentation. Above all things, the Korean government fails to explore relevant criteria to pick out beneficiaries of government subsidies and to evaluate the performance of benefited social enterprises. As a result, it becomes impossible to connect government subsides with performance evaluation, making the government's financial subsidies to social enterprise inefficient and ineffective. Furthermore, the government subsides offered without the performance evaluation of social enterprises may produce the serious inequity between competing social enterprises for government subsides.

Against these backdrops, this paper aims to explore the acceptable and relevant criteria for the selection of government subsides and the performance evaluation of subsidized social enterprises and to apply these criteria to the real world, taking into account the type and size of social enterprises. In detail, this paper has the following research aims:

• Establish relevant criteria to select the beneficiaries of government subsides; 
• Work out appropriate criteria to undertake the performance evaluation of subsidised social enterprises;
• Debate the alternatives to apply the criteria of selection and performance evaluation to the real world, taking into account the type and size of social enterprises;
• And finally, examine a way to link performance evaluation on social enterprises with the process of selecting the beneficiaries of government subsides

Full paper: Kim_S-Y_2009_social_enterprise.pdf

The purpose of this paper is to take stock of the social science literature on the East Asian welfare regime that has come around over the last decade or so. It suggests the concepts of the welfare triangle and the welfare diamond as a theoretical framework and then proceeds to discuss the development in Japan and Korea in separate sections, mainly highlighting the significant changes that have taken place, including the demise of life long (male) employment and company welfare and the concomitant increase in public social welfare that took place with democratization. Some elements of continuity are also pointed out such as the important role of state bureaucracies and of land reform. The following section engages with the comparative social policy literature in sub-sections. First few country comparisons of Japan and Korea and of Korea and Taiwan are discussed highlighting the similarities in development, institutional setup and welfare mixes even if Japan was the forerunner. The combined challenges of globalization, demographic changes and pressures from civil society are considered the drivers behind the (partial) universalization of the welfare regime within these states. Next comparative studies that take on many countries in the region are discussed, highlighting the reaction to the financial crisis in 1997. The last section tries to conclude this overview of the welfare modeling business in East Asia, by suggesting that, despite considerable variation across the region, there are enough commonalities to warrant the assumption that they belong to the same overall welfare regime. However, it is not particular to East Asia; it is shared with Southern Europe and Latin America. For lack of better terms, it is called the informal care regime.

This paper explores the nature of the newly emerging welfare state in Korea. There is a growing consensus that a welfare state has been emerging over the 1997 economic crisis. Social policy reform has been implemented in Korea during the past decade. A major tool for the reform was expanding universalistic social insurance programs like those in western welfare states. A modernized public welfare system has been institutionalized as well.

Many experts have debated about the characteristics of the social policy reform. Some scholars maintain that the reform aimed at promoting social solidarity and resulted in an increased state involvement in social welfare provision. Yet, some critics have argued that the government implemented a labor market reform which led to employment insecurity and that the social security expansion was essentially a subsidiary tool for the labor market reform. Some of them characterize the emerging welfare state as neo-liberal. Others call it a productivist welfare capitalism.

This paper analyzes labor market changes during the past decades and finds that this criticism is not consistent with available evidence. The number of workers in non-regular employment has been rapidly increasing, as the critics indicated. Many low-income families have not gained many benefits from the reformed social security system due to the unsecure employment status. It is found, however, that non-regular, low-wage workers have been increasing not due to a neo-liberal labor market reform, but due to the labor market duality. The dual labor market, characterized by the coexistence of overprotected regular workers and under-protected non-regular workers, is a legacy of the authoritarian developmental state during the industrialization period.

This paper concludes that a western welfare state strategy mainly relying on universalistic social insurance systems may not be so effective in protecting disadvantaged families in Korea. The future of Korean welfare state may hinge on inventing a successful strategy for lessening the labor market duality.

Holliday (2000) proposed a model called 'productivist welfare capitalism

(PWC),' emphasizing that social policy in East Asia is an important policy

instrument for facilitating economic development rather than protecting

citizens from social contingencies and poverty. However, despite their

similarities as productivist welfare states, a gradual but marked sign of

divergence has emerged in the region, especially since the 1997 Asian

financial crisis. The recent expansion of social protection in some

countries (e.g. South Korea and Taiwan) leads scholars to raise a question

about the usefulness of the concept of PWC. This research sets out to

address this question based on the following two puzzles:

 

First, is there a systematic variation of productivist welfare state in

East and Southeast Asia? If so, how can we contain their similarities and

differences in a single model? How many clusters can we distinguish under

the productivist framework?

 

Second, if there is a systematic divergence, what is behind it? What are

the major determinants differentiating the course of productivist welfare

development in the region?

 

Regarding the first question, this research presents a model derived from

two theoretical dimensions - redistribution and efficiency - and carries

out cluster analysis on 12 countries to verify the existence of three

subcategories of PWC (compensatory, competitive, and mixed). In the second

part, this study examines economic and political variables to identify the

causal configuration that generates the divergence of PWC in East and

Southeast Asia. The main argument is that the type of financial system and

the political regime type play a critical role in formulating the pattern

of social policy development in the region. Based upon annual observations

of public expenditures and institutional platforms of social policy, this

research conducts MLE analysis to test the argument.

According to Japanese social norms the family is expected to be the fundamental support system, even if its members are on intimate terms with each other. In other words, intimacy within the modern Japanese family is assumed and consequently it is demanded that the family will provide support for its members.

As nuclear families replace extended ones, especially in Tokyo, once relationship problems within couples arise, there are often no other adults in the family who can intervene or mediate between the couple. This situation is likely to create further conflict and it is also difficult to seek outside support since it is thought that family problem should to be dealt with inside the family and if made public are a cause of shame. As a consequence of this issue, women often suffer.

Many kinds of mutual aid groups have developed in East Asian countries based on community or blood relations. The wider community which acts like an extended family has a number of well-developed networks which attempt to deal with a range of issues. However, as urbanisation continues, frequent migration and the increasing importance of the nuclear family, means that traditional mutual aid groups no longer perform their roles effectively.

This paper draws on qualitative interview data from women in Tokyo who have experienced mental health difficulties in relation to family issues. It explores the role of social support, especially informal types, in providing help for these women. It concludes by suggesting that alternative types of support within the community need to be developed in order to provide effective support for Japanese women experiencing mental health problems.

Full paper: Kamozawa_2009_family_mental_distress.pdf

This paper draws on a retrospective survey of 498 students in China and 481 in England and follow-up interviews, focusing on their experiences of physical punishment and disciplinary behaviour from mothers and fathers 'while growing up', including how they felt about their experiences and views concerning what might be perceived as 'acceptable' or 'unacceptable' punishments. The paper focuses on the Chinese findings, while the English findings are referred to for comparison and debate. The findings are contextualised and discussed in relation to ongoing debates and policy development concerning children's right to safety. In the past decade in particular, there has been ongoing debate and development of policy in China regarding punishment of children, as well as what might constitute 'unacceptable' levels of punishment. The UN Convention on Rights of the Child came into force in China in 1992. The Chinese law for Protection of Minors 1991 stipulated that society and parents or other guardians have a direct role in protecting children from maltreatment, although some level of physical punishment continued to be perceived as acceptable for the purposes of discipline. The revised law on Protection of Minors 2006 has potentially shifted this by deeming inappropriate corporal punishment by teachers, if not by parents. With regard to the survey, as children the students mainly experienced similar types and levels of punishment, although with significant, gendered, differences regarding wilful behaviour and answering back by girls in China. The study indicated greater expectation in relation to educational achievement for boys in China - thus also echoing more traditional societal responses. Most of the respondents in China thought use of physical punishment acceptable for disciplining children, although there were also indications that this was being questioned and that some wanted to see change.

This piece of research examines the experiences and needs of Taiwanese children and young people who regularly have to care for someone in their families. As a specific category of family care givers, 'young carers' are children and young people under the age of 18 who provide care to another family member who is suffering from a long-term illness or disability. Research in the UK has led to a growing understanding of the situation of young carers over the past 20 years. However, in Taiwan, hardly anything is known about the lives and experiences of young carers with family caring responsibilities. As a result, it is not surprising that young carers, both as carers and as children, remain hidden or invisible to the society and to service providers.

With the intension of raising professional and public awareness to the issue, which might lead to the growth of nationwide support services aimed specially at young carers, this study adopts in-depth interviews to allow children and young people to speak directly of what it is like to be a carer. The findings reveal that young carers perform a range of caring work at their homes, including housework, parenting younger siblings, emotional support, and personal care tasks. The study also highlights the impacts of caring on the children's everyday lives, such as school life, friendship, personal development, and long term effects. Based on the empirical evidence, the study puts forward recommendations for future policy in order to meet the needs of young carers.

Amidst endeavors to examine social policies from a gender-sensitive perspective, this study investigated elderly women's economic risks and effectiveness of pension policy in a comparative manner. First, relative poverty risks of elderly female householder of 15 OECD countries in their 1990s were calculated using Luxembourg Income Study dataset. Second, women's pension rights were specified by integrating pension indicators into two separate indices - individual right and derived right. Third, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (Fs/QCA) was used to analyze the causal relationship between pension rights and economic welfare of elderly women. Control variables such as women's labor market participation rate, social expenditure for the aged and social assistance expenditure (% of total social expenditure) were also considered. As a result, individual rights passed the necessity test for high economic security of elderly female householder while derived right passed the necessity test of the high relative poverty risk of elderly female householder (benchmark proportion of .65, p<0.05). In the sufficient test, countries with "high individual right and low derived right" usually showed high economic security of elderly female householders. In addition, "low individual right and high derived right" joined with one of "high women's economic activity, low relative public spending on the elderly or low relative social assistance expenditure" were revealed as the causal combinations sufficient for the relative poverty risk. These conclusions suggest that pension policies developing individual rights, rather than derived rights, would have more resilience on elderly women's economic risk from a comparative perspective.

Full paper: Kim_S-W_2009_womens_economic_risk.pdf 

The proposed paper will describe and analyse the "Ten Year Plan for Long-term Care" initiated by the government of the RoC in 2007.  The plan was devised to cope with the country's rapidly ageing population and with changes in family structure that made reliance on the extended family and particularly on care provided by adult children increasingly untenable.  It provided substantial additional finance to extend forms of communal living, including forms of semi-sheltered housing, but also to enable people to be as self reliant as possible for as long as possible and even to live in their own homes.  Whilst families are still expected to pay a share of costs, increased government subsidy will be available.  Rather than simple means-testing, the amount provided will be determined by a sliding scale that takes account not only of income but also of the severity of impairment.  A substantial growth of the social care industry is expected.

 

The paper will consider the extent to which the RoC, in developing its Ten Year Plan looked at systems of long-term care provision in other countries.  Relevant here are financing mechanisms.  Policymakers rejected a system of long-term care insurance such as exists in Japan and is being put in place in Korea.  However, it is to be asked whether a system that relies upon budget allocations from the finance ministry rather than dedicated financing is likely to be sustainable, particularly in the increasingly harsh economic climate that has followed the world crises.  Equally relevant are the criteria for eligibility.  Not all forms of frailty will entitle claims for assistance.  In addition to looking at these issues, the paper will discuss the ambitious delivery systems envisaged in the plan. Here, it will look at staff training programmes and the capabilities of the currently rather limited not-for-profit sector upon which reliance is being placed.

This study aims to employ focus group method to develop the Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey questionnaire in Taiwan. It is a part of the "Poverty and Social Exclusion in Taiwan: Pilot Study" project[*] to adapt the methodology of the Poverty and Social Exclusion of Britain (PSE) to evaluate the extent of poverty of the Taiwanese population. In Taiwan scholarship that addresses issues of measuring poverty has been dominated by measures that focus on identifying the numbers and characteristics of officially registered 'Low-income Households', by attempts to evaluate the extent of income poverty, or by employing Food, Clothing, Shelter and Utilities (FCSU) method (i.e. budget standards method). There exist very few empirical studies on social exclusion and no utilisation of the consensual/social indicators approach, which PSE of Britain was originated from. Household income and budget standards approaches identify the 'poor' as those with a low income irrespective of the level of their actual living standards. However, it is not necessarily sufficient to determine whether he/she is poor with reference to his/her income when poverty is defined as relative deprivation. Using both income and deprivation indicators, the PSE survey offers the opportunity to measure poverty more accurately and to provide a more complete picture of the living standards of the poor. The PSE measured the percentage of respondents identifying different adult and children items as 'necessary, which all adults and/or children should be able to afford and which they should not have to do without'. This study attempts to develop an understanding of what indicators of poverty and social exclusion culturally and socially relevant to a Taiwanese context. The focus group methodology is used in this study to look at issues including: what participants consider essential or necessities that everyone in Taiwan should have, be able to do or have access to; and what participants think about exclusion for certain spheres of society, and who, if anyone, is excluded. 

Old-age insecurity has become one of the most important social issues in two emerging welfare states, namely South Korea and Taiwan, as they are transforming themselves into ageing societies at a remarkable pace. During the last decade, the two countries have developed different sets of social protection for the elderly. South Korea has expanded social insurance pensions with strictly means-tested assistance schemes whereas Taiwan has introduced flat-rate old-age allowance programmes, excluding the rich rather than targeting the poor. Much has been written about these developments lately, but the actual performance of these programmes has not been thoroughly examined in terms of the reduction of old-age poverty. This study aims to analyse the antipoverty effect of these programmes firstly by describing recent developments in the two countries and secondly by examining headcount poverty rate and poverty gap using micro household dataset. It will argue that while the role of these programmes in old-age security has increased over the years, different policy choices have clearly resulted in different welfare outcomes in the two countries. This article will discuss possible implications of their policy choices on family transfers and further policy reforms.

Financial crisis swept away Asia about a decade ago. The subsequent debates on the Asian welfare policies have examined the impacts of globalization on Asian welfare regimes. After a number of studies on the short-term effects of economic crisis, we are able to discern more long-term effects on current nature of welfare regimes and their future directions of changes. In this paper, we compare continuous trends and changes in labor market and social policy reforms across Korea and Japan since late 1990s. We focus on how economic policies and welfare policies interact with each other, which can promote divergence and a possibility of different welfare regimes for these countries.

Most East Asian countries employed social policies as effective instruments for the economic recovery, in particular, their labor markets. These countries also developed social insurance, which strengthens a link between labor market and welfare regime. Thus, we focus on how globalization affected each country's labor market, albeit at slightly different time periods, and how governments developed both labor market and welfare policies to cope with such problems. Finally, we will compare each country based on the interaction between labor market policies and welfare policies as a package. In conclusion, we will argue that the economic and social pressure of globalization makes it difficult to separate labor markets and welfare regimes. Thus, the present cases will provide a starting point to broaden our welfare regime typology to include labor market policies.

The recent financial tsunami has caused thousands of factories in China to collapse, and tens of millions of migrant workers to lose their jobs. It is estimated that at least 10% of the rural migrant workers are unemployed since the Chinese New Year holidays this year. Many still stay in urban areas aiming for job opportunities, though the chances are slim. The impacts on their livelihoods and employment conditions gradually become serious social issues in China today. The authors had conducted a field trip to Pearl River Delta Area of Guangdong Province in March 2009 to study about these impacts. Through our visits to the social service agencies, the rural migrant workers, and academics researching on this topic, we understand more deeply about the impacts of the financial tsunami on migrant workers, and the responses of social service agencies providing services to them. In this paper, we will make use of the primary data we obtained from the field trip and also second data to study three main themes of the topic: 1) the impacts of the deteriorating economy on injury compensations for the migrant workers; 2) the issue of underpayment and violation of labor contract law; and 3) changes in the education opportunities for the workers' children in the host cities.

Full paper: lee_wong_2009_migrant_worker.pdf

Presentation slides: lee_wong_2009_migrant_worker_slides.pdf

The last major international financial tsunami, starting in 1929, led to a decade of world-wide economic depression, mass unemployment and political instability culminating in a world war. One of the major factors that could lead to international political instability in the present crisis is the threat of economic protectionism by the major trading countries. Already the American government is introducing 'buy American' clauses in its policies which is causing concern to the People's Republic of China..

Central to the threat of international instability is national stability, political, economic and social. And our wellbeing and quality of life and major determinants of national stability. Mass homelessness, unemployment, poverty and a sense of hopelessness were endemic in the 1930s. It is social policy which can address these quality of life issues. This paper deals with the implications for the relationship between quality of life, wellbeing, and social policy of the contemporary tumultuous financial catastrophes

The first part of the paper defines quality of life and social policy and then explores the relationship between them using Titmuss's seminal construct of the social division of welfare, retitled the social division of quality of life. This is followed by a brief exploration of the extent and consequences of the financial tsunami for quality of life.

The paper finishes with an analysis of the implications of the financial crisis for social policy and for quality of life. The conclusions are rather bleak in material terms but it is also argued that the contemporary financial crisis provides an opportunity for us - both as individuals and as nations - to reconsider the balance between material and non-material aspects of wellbeing and quality of life.

Finally, in an appendix, some potential indicators of quality of life a re suggested.