사회서비스 발달과 여성노동권의 상보성

Complementarity of Developed Social Services and Women"s Employment Right

&nbsp;&nbsp;Korean welfare state is facing diverse pressures. Weakened family functions and increasing burden of caring dependents, serious barriers in balancing paid work and family responsibilities, lowest fertility rate and most rapid ageing of population in OECD countries, and both undeveloped and uncoordinated social services, etc. These big challenges which indicate the so-called "new social risks" have been opening a series of discussion on the care crisis and development of social services, on re-building the family-state responsibility and re-shaping the gender relations, and on integrating labor market policy and social welfare programs. The old social risks such as retirement, ill health, poverty, unemployment did not disappear and now are even intertwined with new social risks, thereby Korean welfare state is confronting complicated reform tasks.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;This study attempts to elaborate and compare the strategies other OECD countries have chosen facing similar problems through the welfare restructuring era. For replacing original welfare state regime theory, gender regime debate is introduced. The complementary relationship between social service development and women&quot;s employability as well as women&quot;s active labor market participation is argued and clearly verified on the basis of recent comparative studies. Current pursuit of a service-oriented welfare state in Korea is quite encouraging in general, to compensate for the expected lack of labor supply in the near future, however, the social policy should more focus on the virtuous cycle of social service development, women&quot;s employment, and tax revenue expansion. This study will shed light on a better understanding on the importance of social services and its strong intrinsic association with women&quot;s employment right.