What Determines the Policy Introduction of Local Governments? Evidence from Childbirth Grants in Korea

This paper explains what determined the introduction of childbirth grants across local governments in Korea. The childbirth grants program is one-time cash grants that a local government provides to its resident who gives birth. Local governments make autonomous decisions on the implementation and the budget size of the childbirth grants. And the funding is financed without supports from the central government. Many local governments in the rural area began to implement the childbirth grants in the early 2000s, and it is now widespread throughout the country. Consequently, 145 out of 230 local governments have adopted the childbirth grants. Using a duration analysis, I investigated how the politics and demographic structures of the local governments affected their decisions on introducing the childbirth grants. The result shows that the political alignment and political competition have significant influences. The locality whose governor belonged to the ruling party had higher probability to adopt the childbirth grants. But the adoption was deferred when one party was dominating the local government and the council. I also found that the locality with higher marriage rate had lower probability for implementing the childbirth grants.