Foreword (September 2024, Health and Welfare Policy Forum)

Abstract

The September issue of the Health and Welfare Forum is organized around the theme “Comparing Citizens’ Perceptions of the Changing Social Landscape.” Welfare states around the world, having consistently expanded their social spending and augmented social policies to address various risks that stemmed from industrialization in the 20th century, now, as the 21st century moves on, face formidable challenges to their functions and capacities amid significant social transitions. It is hardly contentious that among the social challenges that most welfare states must address with urgency are those involving population aging, digitalization, automation, climate change, and the green transition. Efforts made in this direction widely vary across countries and regions. These differences can be attributed in large part to how citizens of different places, both individually and in groups, perceive changing social conditions and related policies. Thus, comparative research into how citizens of different countries perceive their changing social conditions is crucial, as it provides valuable evidence for reshaping the roles and policies of the welfare state in times of major social changes. This rationale led KIHASA to form a consortium last year with the Copenhagen Business School, the Polytechnic University of Turin, the University of Sussex, and Roskilde University, with the aim of surveying citizens’ perceptions in ten countries regarding the changing social landscape. Questionnaires were constructed, and surveys were conducted in the first half of this year, targeting citizens of Korea, the US, the UK, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Poland. The present issue of the Health and Welfare Forum features three articles comparing citizens’ perceptions in the surveyed countries, with each exploring, based on data gained from the cross-national survey, ‘population aging’, ‘digitalization and automation,’ and ‘climate change and the green transition,’ respectively. We hope that from these articles readers will gain through a comparative social policy lens a better understanding of the current state and characteristic features of the Korean public’s perceptions of these ongoing changes.