Historical Path, Issues, and Reformation Course of Social Service Provision System in Korea

Abstract

This study explains Korean social service provision system from the historical perspective. In order to understand the phenomenon of rapidly growing social service provision in Korea, it is necessary for this study to identify the historical paths of social service provision system with a comprehensive analytic framework. The framework of analysis includes identifying system components and explaining their relationship within the social service provision system. Consumers, financial providers, and service providers are the key concepts of system component. This study shows the relationships among those components are well explained by the resource-dependency theory from the perspective of political economy. This study implies that the development of Korean social service provision system has been the results of accumulation of three distinguishable sets of social service types which are locked in independently. These findings could be utilized in policy design and/or redesign of Korean social service provision.