International Comparative Study on Correspondence between Welfare State and Social Economy: Focusing on the government supports by the type of social economy organization

Abstract

This study is aiming to examine the current status of social economy development in Korea and the social economy support policies of UK, Spain, Italy, and France. To this end, three major parts have been reviewed: First,development process of Korea’social economy organizations and their dependence on the government; second, a comparison of social economy policies of four major countries; and third, Korea’s development tasks. The reviews have revealed that, first, since 2000, social economy organizations in Korea have developed into government-led structures as they have been included in the government-initiated projects for the purpose of escaping from poverty, creating jobs, and providing social services. And while the budget of social economy organizations has increased by about 156% over the past five years, the government’s budget is small, around 1 trillion won(2022). Second, among the four foreign countries, those led by the private sectors have different support policies for profit corporations and nonprofit corporations, while government-led countries are focusing on promoting nonprofit businesses by the profit corporations. Third, when considering the future types of social economy corporations, the added value of the nonprofit sector, and the employment effect, the UK is judged that appropriate as the benchmarking country for Korea. For introducing the UK policies, efforts should be made to outsource the public services and to create the infrastructures for private resources, by focusing on the expansion of the social service industry.