Welfare states were established and developed in the process of coping with a range of social risks such as poverty, old-age, illness, and unemployment. While those risks are still existing, contemporary welfare states are now transforming themselves ...
Welfare states were established and developed in the process of coping with a range of social risks such as poverty, old-age, illness, and unemployment. While those risks are still existing, contemporary welfare states are now transforming themselves in order to respond to ‘new’ social risks including underemployment, work-care reconciliation, old-age dependency, and migration. Further, some risks relating to climate changes and energy, which used to be outside of the welfare state domain, has emerged as important policy issues. In this context, many studies raise questions regarding the effectiveness of welfare states and their financial sustainability. In particular, South Korea, unlike mature western welfare states, are intensively experiencing old and new social risks at the same time, which leads to the dilemma between the expansion of the welfare state and the financial sustainability. While much has been written about social risks, very few studies have theoretically developed and empirically tested the concept of social risks and its changing nature.
This research aimed to systematically conceptualize and operationalize ‘social risks’, to compare different quantity and quality of social risks across different countries, to analyze different welfare state strategies to cope with social risks, and finally to establish Korean welfare state strategies to effectively deal with increasing social risks. Specifically, this research has conducted the following three aspects;
First, newly conceptualize and operationalize social risks.
Second, establish a set of ‘social risks’ measurements and indicators.
Third, based on the first two, analyze and compare dynamic patterns of social risks in different welfare states.