Online Portal 'Social Service Market'

An Activation Strategy for the Social Service Market of Korea

Abstract

In Korea, social service has been introduced by the Korean government in the early 2000 as the last component of the nation's Social Security system. Despite the government's arduous efforts, the development of social service sector has been sluggish, and today the social service market lacks vitality. The primary cause of this problem is the government's control over social service prices; yet, the alteration of the price control policy cannot be a feasible solution to the problem. A 3-year-R&D project aiming at formulating a solution to the problem was proposed by the authors and approved by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. For the last two years, the authors have developed an online portal ‘Social Service Market' and implemented various demonstration programs. By using the online portal, the authors have attempted to turn latent consumers and providers of social services into active participants of the social service market. So far, the attempt has been found successful; and the objectives and outcomes of the last years of project are discussed detail in this paper. During the remaining one year of the R&D project, the authors are to improve the online portal so that it serves the consumers and providers of social services as a limit free platform.