Abstract
The research on social policy and welfare states is currently expanding its research territories. For instance, the research on social welfare in Asian countries has become one of the main objects in recent academic field. As the scope of this research field expands, analytical methods and theoretical implications have to be more precise and multiple approaches for them are in need. Considering these research tendency, I examine the trend. of social welfare in South Korea, and hope to contribute to a comparative study of welfare states.
In this paper, I first discuss the social welfare policy, design of social welfare policy, and research topics on them. And second, I draw out some implications related to the sociology of social welfare. Regarding social policy, the social problem of aging and social inclusion is examined using the report of national strategy for these problems. Second, I compare the function and provability of 'Productive welfare' and 'Participatory welfare' which were the designs of social welfare policy during the regimes of Kim Dae-Jung and Roh Moo-Hyun. In the discussions on the Productive welfare and the Participatory welfare, the ideal relationship of social capitalism, democracy, and social welfare was mentioned. Finally, the diversification of research themes and methodology and the diversification of backgrounds of researchers are discussed. This discussion clarifies topics common characters in the study of social welfare between Japan and South Korea.
