The 2015 welfare reform of the National Basic Livelihood Security System in South Korea: Effects on economic outcomes

In July 2015, South Korea’s National Basic Livelihood Security System (NBLSS) was reformed for the purposes of eliminating welfare blind spots and reducing poverty. The reform is expected to affect the recipients’ economic behaviours and choices. In this study, we used changes in benefits and eligibility for the NBLSS under the customised benefit system to identify the effects of the change in the NBLSS on a proposed set of economic outcomes – income, labour supply, consumption, savings, poverty reduction. To estimate the effects, we used data from the 10th–12th waves of the Korea Welfare Panel Study and employed a difference‐in‐differences framework integrated with the propensity scores. We found that the NBLSS helps the poor to reduce financial and material hardships through income and consumption increments, but that it does not provide disincentives to the recipients from participating in the labour market or from saving.     

低保对象为何退保难?动态分析策略下的退保模式及其变迁趋势研究

本文基于民政部2014年“中国城乡困难家庭社会政策支持系统建设”调查的数据，运用事件史分析方法，对城市低保接受时长和退保影响因素进行探究。研究发现，低保对象的救助接受时间呈现明显的长期化特点，但随着低保接受时间的延长，低保对象退保风险会逐渐上升。这与“时间依赖论”关于长期化救助接受会逐渐弱化救助对象工作伦理，进而造成救助退出可能性逐步下降的理论预设恰好相反，说明中国城市低保对象退保难与工作积极性下降无关。进一步的研究发现，弱势化的低保人口构成及就业救助服务缺失是长期低保接受的重要原因。此外，中国的非正规就业结构也对退保构成显著的不利影响，不过，该影响随着时代的发展在不断减弱。     

The differential role of human capital and health in explaining welfare exit‐route and labour outcomes

The aim of this study was to determine the differential effects of human capital and health on welfare exit‐route, earnings and working hours among female welfare recipients in Israel. The study also examined whether higher human capital mediates the effect of health problems on the different outcomes. The data were obtained from a national panel survey of 2,700 single mothers who were receiving welfare when the Israeli welfare reform was implemented. The effect of health was found to be more consistent than the effect of human capital. Formal education had no effect on welfare exit‐route, while health did. The effect of health on working hours was more profound than the effect of human capital, while the reverse applied to earnings. Richer human capital did not mediate the effect of health problems. These findings suggest that the prediction power of human capital on labour and welfare decisions has weakened under welfare reform provision.     

The Contributions of the Health Decommodification Typologies to the Study of the East Asian Welfare Regime

Since Esping‐Andersen presented the three worlds of welfare typology thesis, the study of the classification of welfare regimes has been dominated by his work and the debates surrounding it. This article is concerned with two important responses to his work. The first response is the development of welfare typologies based on the principle of decommodification. The second response is the concern that East Asian countries are underrepresented in the 18 members of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) studied by Esping‐Andersen. As a result, there are calls for expanding the scope of the studies on the classification of welfare regimes to those in East Asia. This article makes contributions to these two responses by presenting two analytical tasks. The first task is to develop two health decommodification typologies based on two different methods (cluster analysis and Esping‐Andersen's index‐based regime construction). Both of them cover the 18 OECD members studied by Esping‐Andersen and four tiger economies (Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore). The second task is to demonstrate that the two health decommodification typologies provide important information for the debate on the existence of two essential preconditions for the development of an all‐encompassing East Asian welfare regime, namely the existence of significant differences in the welfare systems between the East Asian countries and the 18 OECD countries studied by Esping‐Andersen (1990 ) and the existence of significant similarities in the welfare systems between East Asian countries.     

Explaining Korean Welfare State Development with New Empirical Data and Methods

Selecting Korea as one of the conceptually classified East Asian welfare states, this paper aims to empirically investigate the determinants of Korean welfare state development. Linking the research question with the lively discussion on welfare state in Korea that is taking place domestically, this paper also aims to examine whether the development of the Korean welfare state has been influenced by politics of the left or by industrialization with functionalistic perspectives. We conduct an analysis first by regression analysis and then fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to examine the conditions of such development. A Korean Welfare State Dataset (KWSD) has been newly included in the Comparative Welfare State Dataset (CWSD) and we used this new dataset for our empirical analysis. Our empirical findings suggest that, at least up to the current point, factors other than economic development or industrialization are not robust enough to make a claim of a take‐off of the Korean welfare state from its developmental stage. However, we also notice the influence of the left government and suggest that it is legitimate to expect an innovative change in the path of the Korean welfare state once the power resource theory is applicable.     

How Teen Mothers Are Faring Under Welfare Reform

We examine socioeconomic and psychological well-being among 88 low-income minor mothers. Half of the young mothers receive cash welfare assistance and face new policy mandates regarding coresidence status and school attendance. Although most appear to be "complying" with the requirements of the new welfare rules and are satisfied with their current living arrangements, many are faring poorly on dimensions of psychological well-being and life stress. Receipt of cash welfare is not a significant correlate of school success, parenting stress, or economic strain. Teen coresidence with their mothers does not appear to buffer against the experience of child care problems, depressive symptoms, or domestic violence. We discuss the implications of the results forresearch, policy, and services for teen parent families.     

The Urban Geography of Welfare Reform: Spatial Patterns of Caseload Dynamics in Detroit

Objective . To assess how the characteristics of welfare recipients have varied geographically in the Detroit metropolitan area since the passage of welfare reform in 1996 and how spatial proximity to job opportunities is related to work rates among welfare recipients. Methods . Using administrative data on welfare receipt in the Detroit metropolitan area and data from two employer surveys in Detroit, I examine changes in the welfare caseload between 1992 and 2000 and estimate logit models of the probability that welfare recipients report work earnings in 1998. Results . Although the number of adult welfare recipients in the Detroit metropolitan area declined by over 75 percent between 1992 and 2000, nearly 25,000 households—most residing in the central city—continue to receive welfare. Rates of work among welfare recipients are positively related to the accessibility of employment opportunities. Conclusions . My results indicate that support services and programs in the coming years will have to fit a caseload that is changing both qualitatively and geographically. Further, consistent with the most current spatial mismatch research, my findings show that greater access to job opportunities leads to greater rates of reported work earnings among welfare recipients.     

Welfare Recipients' College Attendance and Consequences for Time‐Limited Aid*

Objective. I examine the association between total time on welfare and recipients' college attendance and graduation over a 20‐year period. Methods. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I model the determinants of college enrollment and graduation among welfare recipients, and the association between the total number of months a recipient receives aid and her college attendance and graduation. Models examine separately the effects associated with longer stays on aid while recipients attend school as well as reduced recidivism associated with college attendance and graduation. Results. Findings indicate that attending college is associated with more months on aid, but graduating largely offsets this increase through reductions in return to aid. Conclusions. Policymakers' concerns that including postsecondary education as a TANF activity would undermine the short‐term focus of the program are not fully supported. A greater concern is the low rate of graduation among welfare recipients, who reap the most benefits from college attendance and sacrifice the fewest months on aid.     

Street‐level discretion,emotional labour and welfare frontline staff at the Australian employment service providers

Despite the current controversial debates about discretion in public bureaucracies in general, and in welfare agencies in particular, the current literature on street‐level bureaucracy mainly assumes that discretion is a distinctive feature of the daily work of public servants. Nonetheless, a pertinent question has not specifically been asked in this literature, that is, given the context of privatisation and increased welfare conditionality in the welfare sector that are seriously challenging welfare frontline staff's commitment to social justice and human rights‐based practices, what are forms of street‐level discretion likely to contribute to improving the quality of welfare services? In this study, we attempt to address this question by exploring discretion displayed by welfare frontline staff in four Australian employment service providers. We argue that emotional labour, especially when being informed by critical empathy, is an important and effective form of street‐level discretion that welfare frontline workers can perform to better support welfare recipients and minimise the punitive aspects of welfare policy.     

Welfare state regimes and family policy: a longitudinal analysis

The primary aim of the article is to access the extent to which welfare state regimes support distinct family policies across OECD (Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development) countries and over time. Focusing in particular on the work of Esping‐Andersen we address the following questions: (i) What is the relation between de‐commodification and de‐familialisation? (ii) Are there distinct welfare state regimes that support different levels of family policy? (iii) To what extent have levels of support for family policy differed over the last decades toward divergence or convergence among OECD welfare states? Using data from the OECD Social Expenditure database (1980–2001), we find that the degree of de‐familialisation through welfare state regimes parallels the de‐commodification scores. However, the findings indicate a degree of instability in the relationship between levels of support for family policy and welfare state regimes over the last decades. We conclude by discussing how the findings speak to the changing character of welfare regimes and the implications of a longitudinal perspective.     

Welfare Policies and the Construction of Welfare Relations in a Residual Welfare State: The Case of Hong Kong

Each welfare system has its own welfare relations for shaping and maintaining certain types of welfare practices and welfare ideologies. Welfare relations concern the distribution of welfare responsibilities among various social institutions, the public's welfare expectations and entitlements, and the status of welfare recipients. Welfare policies, which are a legal basis of the dominant class's philosophy as well as a mechanism for policing welfare recipients' use of benefits, play an important role in shaping and constructing the welfare relations of a country. This paper discusses how welfare policies construct the required welfare relations with regard to Hong Kong's social security system. It is argued that the persistence of Hong Kong's residual welfare model is partly based on the residual welfare relations which facilitate family-centred and market-oriented welfare practices.     

Employment and Parenting Among Current and Former Welfare Recipients

Abstract

This two-wave longitudinal study investigated whether low-wage employment predicts improvements in depressive symptoms and parenting style in a sample of 178 current and former single-mother welfare recipients with a preschooler at Time 1 and an early-elementary school-age child at Time 2. Findings suggest that participation in employment is associated with improvements in single mothers' psychological well-being and parenting style over time. However, in this study, employment at Time 1 (baseline) was more beneficial with respect to psychological and parenting outcomes than was employment (and earning more) at Time 2, except for mothers who were not employed at Time 1 and who became employed by Time 2. For these mothers, employment at Time 2 predicted a decrease in depressive symptoms and, through the latter, less negative parenting style. Mothers with higher educational attainment were more likely to be employed at Time 1 (which predicted higher levels of employment and pay at Time 2) and, among those not employed at Time 1, more likely to become employed (and earn more) by Time 2. Implications of these findings for welfare reform are discussed.     

Failing the Transition from Welfare to Work: Women Chronically Disconnected from Employment and Cash Welfare*

Objectives. Although employment among welfare mothers increased substantially following the 1996 welfare reform, some former welfare recipients failed to find stable employment. We review the extent to which low‐income mothers are without work and cash welfare for long periods of time and seek to understand the correlates of becoming chronically disconnected. Methods. We analyze data from a 1997–2003 panel study of single mothers who received cash welfare in an urban county in Michigan in February 1997. We develop a new measure of the extent to which former recipients are “chronically disconnected” from both employment and cash welfare and estimate regression models of the correlates of this economic outcome. Results. About 9 percent of respondents became chronically disconnected, defined as being without employment and cash welfare during at least one‐quarter of the months during the 79‐month study period. Important correlates of becoming chronically disconnected include having a physical limitation, having a learning disability, using illegal drugs or meeting the diagnostic screening criteria for alcohol dependence, and having no car or driver license. The chronically disconnected are more likely to have lost a job than to have lost welfare benefits and are more economically disadvantaged than those with regular sources of economic support. Conclusions. To reduce the number of women who fail to make a successful transition from welfare to work, more attention should be given to programs and policies that attempt to reconnect disconnected women to regular sources of economic support.     

Welfare reform and liberal governance: disciplining Cambodian-American bodies

The impact of the 1996 US welfare reform act on Southeast Asian-Americans has been an important topic for research in recent years. Many studies have focused on issues of limited access, culturally/linguistically inappropriate services, and responses of community-based organisations. Although these studies help us assess the material implications of welfare reform on group life, they reveal little about the ideological consequences. This article examines how contemporary welfare reform governs and disciplines the lives of its recipients. Based on in-depth interviews with Cambodian-American families in Long Beach, California, this article examines the imposition of governance upon its recipients by the welfare state.     

Welfare Reform and Child Fostering: Pinpointing Affected Child Populations*

Objective. The objective of our research is to examine the impact of New Jersey's welfare reform called the Family Development Program (FDP) on child fostering among children on welfare. Methods. The research and analytical methods we use include an experimental design and probit regressions. Results. Our results show that FDP impacts are confined to children of short‐term welfare recipients (new cases) but affects both African‐American and white children in this welfare group. Among new cases, FDP decreases the probability of African‐American children living in foster families, resulting in a 28 percent change from the baseline prevalence rate of 7.2 percent. In contrast, FDP increases the likelihood of white children living in foster families, leading to a 70 percent change from the baseline occurrence rate of 1.4 percent. Conclusions. We conclude by discussing the policy implications of such segmented impacts of welfare reform for vulnerable child populations.     

Financial incentives to work: A quasi‐experimental analysis of in‐work cash benefits for single mothers

This study examined the effectiveness of a voluntary welfare‐to‐work programme nationally implemented in Israel in 2003 and 2004. The programme included temporary in‐work benefits in the form of cash bonuses for single mothers who were receiving Income Support Benefits in 2003, when a far reaching change in the Income Support Scheme was implemented. The study focused on the effect of the bonuses on employment rate, earnings, earnings improvement and welfare exit. Based on administrative data and Propensity Score Matching, the evaluation included all single mothers who participated in the voluntary programme and a comparison group of eligible single mothers who did not participate. The programme had a positive long‐term effect on employment, earnings and earnings improvement among single mothers. However, it had no effect on their rate of exit from the Income Support Programme.     

Welfare Stigma of Social Assistance on Women Recipients in Urban China

Abstract

In urban China, the study of the welfare stigma of poor females receiving social assistance is neglected. An in-depth interview method was used with 16 urban female assistance recipients aged 16–70?years old in the city of Chengdu to examine the forms and the consequences of welfare stigma on them. The purpose of the study is to examine the issue of welfare stigma of female assistance recipients in urban China by means of empirical evidence. The findings suggest that female assistance recipients suffer from welfare stigma in three forms: identity stigma, treatment stigma, and procedure stigma. The three kinds of stigmas mingled with each other are imposed on the female assistance recipients and make them victims of constructed welfare stigma. Welfare stigma does not affect the decision to apply for assistance to meet basic living expenses. Suffering from welfare stigma positions female recipients in a state of isolation and exclusion. The study’s results suggest that efforts should be made to reduce and eliminate welfare stigma of social assistance on female assistance recipients in urban China. Future study should be broadened to consider the comparison of the stigma on female recipients with that on male recipients.     

Beyond Welfare Regimes: From Empirical Typology to Conceptual Ideal types

The welfare regime concept introduced by Gøsta Esping‐Andersen in 1990 is still widely used in comparative political research, although it has been challenged extensively both on empirical and analytical grounds. Besides the fact that many empirical welfare states seem to be hybrid cases of the established welfare regime categories, the argument that welfare regimes exist not only at the country level but also at the local level and at the level of particular welfare programmes has recently gained momentum in the academic literature. In this article, it is argued that the welfare regime concept should be stripped of its historical‐geographical connotations and turned into an ideal‐typical approach. To this end, a three‐dimensional model is proposed here that allows for analyzing the attributes of welfare states, welfare regions and welfare programmes on three analytical dimensions: welfare culture, welfare institutions and socio‐structural effects.     

The End of the Welfare State?

This paper critically examines claims of a new consensus on welfare and the end of the welfare state. We first review the concept of welfare consensus, concentrating on the idea of welfare pluralism, in particular the relatively neglected distinction between national minimum (base) and extension ladder (superstructure). We then examine these concepts in the 1990s under Conservative and New Labour governments. Important changes to welfare pluralism are noted. There have been changes in the character of means-tests, with the national minimum replaced by a series of residual minima, which represent fundamental changes to structural incentives governing the social division of welfare and work. The line between state and non-state provision has been blurred and there have been moves to achieve universalism in the private sector. It is possible to tentatively classify Labour's principles and fledgling policies into three categories: essential continuity with the Conservatives, reversing Conservative policies and extending Conservative policies. However, it is difficult to detect the degree of consensus because a new flexible language is beginning to pervade social policy, with the result that the welfare state is being redefined, notably in areas of full employment, citizenship and conditionality. It is possible to detect, in our terms, moves towards turning Beveridge inside out and from the "Marshall" towards the "Beveridge" welfare state. It is clear that the welfare state is being redefined, but reports of its death have been much exaggerated.     

Chinese Workfarism: Logics and Realities of the Work–Welfare Governance Model

Given the fundamental disparities between China and the west in political structures, social values, policy regimes, and problem loads, it is meaningful to use “workfare” as a challenging analytical standpoint and detect that China had created unique workfare regimes to build up the past state‐socialism and the present market‐socialism. In the era of state‐socialism, the dual‐track welfare system, apparently adopting an institutional approach to the city and a residual approach to the countryside, was purposely integrated with the segregated urban‐rural work system, constituting a China‐specific workfare regime in which the whole workforce was included and effectively organized into the socio‐economic order. Under market‐socialism that appears as an awkward hybrid, the work‐welfare governance model is being gradually transformed into a pragmatic, much marketized one, though without idealogical legitimacy as well as a clear‐cut vision. On the one hand, employment differentiation and income disparity resulted from a strategic shift from the “reform‐without‐losers” stage to the “reform‐with‐losers” stage in the labor market, together with a large scale rural‐to‐urban labor migration, are structuring a market‐oriented, stratified employment system. On the other hand, while being a welfare laggard, China's productivist, status‐segregated welfare system is taking shape owing to a set of welfare reforms along the line of marketization and societalization. All these changes would imply that China is converging towards a neo‐liberal regime in which the role of the state is residual to the market.