The Clash between Social Policy and Traditional Values: Unmet Welfare Needs Sustained by the Culture of Familism in South Korea

Drawing from a wider study of the ideas of poverty and inequality in South Korea, this paper reports on the lived experiences of disadvantaged South Koreans and their relationship to the National Basic Livelihood Security System (NBLSS), a flagship social assistance program aimed at addressing poverty and inequality. Utilizing a cultural approach to understanding and analysing policy responses to poverty, the impact of familism in the application of the NBLSS safety net is examined. Research data is presented through the testimonies, obtained through qualitative research interviews, of disadvantaged research participants and those who work with them, as well as policy‐makers' perspectives, revealing key flaws in the current NBLSS policy objectives. It is clearly evident that, by clinging to outdated Confucian conceptualizations of familial piety as a justification for highly selectivist access to what is no more than a subsistence level of financial support for poor people, the proposition of a poverty safety net is compromised and is widely missing its aim of reducing poverty and inequality in contemporary South Korea.     

Transitions in Caregiving: Evaluating a Person-Centered Approach to Supporting Family Caregivers in the Community

Caregivers of older adults provide a wide range of informal supports and services that enable older adults to continue living in the community. This study describes the use of a multicomponent intervention combined with a person-centered approach to assist caregivers of older adults in the community. Four hundred and eighteen caregiver and care recipient dyads participated in this study and their outcomes related to burden, depression, well-being, and care recipient functional status were evaluated. The findings suggest that adult child and spousal caregivers experience burden differently. Programs designed to support caregivers must tailor services to the unique needs of adult child and spousal caregivers.     

Vector autoregression and causality: a theoretical overview and simulation study

This paper provides a theoretical overview of Wald tests for Granger causality in levels vector autoregressions (VAR's) and Johansen-type error correction models (ECM's). The theory is based on results in Toda and Phillips (1991a) and allows for stochastic and deterministic trends as well as arbitrary degrees of cointegration. We recommend some operational procedures for conducting Granger causality tests that are based on the Gaussian maximum likelihood estimation of ECM's. These procedures are applicable in the important practical case of testing the causal effects of one variable on another group of variables and vice versa. This paper also investigates the sampling properties of these testing procedures through simulation exercises. Three sequential causality tests in ECM's are compared with conventional causality tests in levels and differences VAR's.     

Quasi maximum likelihood estimation of dynamic panel data models

This article establishes the almost sure convergence and asymptotic normality of levels and differenced quasi maximum likelihood (QML) estimators of dynamic panel data models. The QML estimators are robust with respect to initial conditions, conditional and time-series heteroskedasticity, and misspecification of the log-likelihood. The article also provides an ECME algorithm for calculating levels QML estimates. Finally, it compares the finite-sample performance of levels and differenced QML estimators, the differenced generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator, and the system GMM estimator. The QML estimators usually have smaller— typically substantially smaller—bias and root mean squared errors than the panel data GMM estimators.     

Risky investment decisions: How are individuals influenced by their groups?

We investigate the effect of group versus individual decision-making in the context of risky investment decisions in which all subjects are fully informed of the probabilities and payoffs. Although there is full information, the lottery choices pose cognitive challenges so that people may not be sure of their expected utility-maximizing choice. Making such decisions in a group context provides real-time information in which group members can observe others’ choices and revise their own decisions. Our experimental results show that simply observing what others in the group do has a significant impact on behavior. Coupling real-time information with group decisions based on the median value, i.e., majority rule, makes the median investment choice focal, leading people with low values to increase investments and those with high values to decrease investments. Group decisions based on the minimum investment amount produce more asymmetric effects.     

Band Spectral Regression with Trending Data

Band spectral regression with both deterministic and stochastic trends is considered. It is shown that trend removal by regression in the time domain prior to band spectral regression can lead to biased and inconsistent estimates in models with frequency dependent coefficients. Both semiparametric and nonparametric regression formulations are considered, the latter including general systems of two‐sided distributed lags such as those arising in lead and lag regressions. The bias problem arises through omitted variables and is avoided by careful specification of the regression equation. Trend removal in the frequency domain is shown to be a convenient option in practice. An asymptotic theory is developed and the two cases of stationary data and cointegrated nonstationary data are compared. In the latter case, a levels and differences regression formulation is shown to be useful in estimating the frequency response function at nonzero as well as zero frequencies.     

Social Work and Interprofessional Education in Health Care: A Call for Continued Leadership

A report from the Interprofessional Education Collaborative and another from the Institute of Medicine cite working as part of interdisciplinary teams as a core proficiency area for improving health care. This article discusses the core competencies of interprofessional education and the essential role for social workers as leaders and facilitators of this practice. Educators will learn how to help students discover the knowledge, skills, and attitudes for successful interprofessional work. Specifically, this article has the following objectives:

1. Discuss essential elements of effective interprofessional practice;

2. Present exemplars of interprofessional education involving social work;

3. Identify the roles for social work in leadership, education, and practice in interprofessional education.