Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2016
This article examines how postindustrial pressures and political changes have shaped recent social policy reforms in Japan and South Korea. Postindustrial pressures are categorized into exogenous and endogenous factors: exogenous being economic globalization and internationalization, endogenous being changing family and gender relations and demographic shifts such as population aging and declining birthrates. I argue that we need to attend more closely to the interactions between postindustrial and political factors to explain social and welfare policies in these countries. The conventional view on East Asian welfare states no longer adequately explains recent social welfare policy changes in the region.
I would like to thank Pat Boling, Stephan Haggard, Byung-Kook Kim, Andrew MacIntyre, T. J. Pempel, Joe Wong, and the reviewer for their very useful comments on the earlier version of this article. I would also like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) for the grant to support this research.Google Scholar
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