The Influence of Acquisition of National Certificate of 1st Grade Social Worker on Income and Labor Turnover

Abstract

The holder of the national certificate of 1st grade social worker is considered to be a representative professional in the social welfare field who serves the public interest. Therefore, the certificate of 1st grade social worker can be called a semi-license in terms of its social importance, as it has the function of a license. This study aims to analyze the signalling function of the semi-license through the qualification of 1st grade social worker. The data used for the analysis is ?Occupational Employment Statistics 2006? and the technique used is Propensity Scores Matching. As a result, it was found that the licensing system for social workers in Korea focuses on quantitative growth and does not carry out the signalling function of the semi-license properly. It is due to the non-existence of work monopoly and title monopoly that should be included in the semi-license in Korean social welfare semi-license system. However, since it has been changed to a national test, the 1st grade social worker qualification is considered to have 13.64% of income premium even if it is still low compared to other certificates. And as the labor supply is limited in this area to a certain degree, thus the analysis shows that the income rate after job transfer as well as the possibility of job transfer is increased. However in order to maintain the function of 1st grade social worker as a professional social welfare qualification with such low degree, it is important to maintain and operate the labor supply on a reasonable level through the monopoly of title and work. This result accords with the results of a survey conducted for 1st grade social worker license holders in September 2010.