Social Investment for Older People- Lesson from UK and Implications for Korea -

This study attempts to examine social investment policies in the U.K. focusing on the aging population. In Korea, the incumbent administration implements welfare policies as a continuation of Rho, Mu-hyeon administration’s social investment policies – an aspect that is considered as well. The existing studies on social investment policies focally dealt with future generation such as young people and or their education/job activation programs. However, this study intends to consider Aging as a social risk as well, and it reviewes the social investment policies for older people based on the case of U.K. First, this study explains the historical and theoretical background of social investment policies. Secondly, reviews are made to understand social issues related to aging population among new social risks. As a main part, social investment policies sought by the New Labor Party are analyzed from three aspects: pension, employment, and care policies for older people. In short, this study stress that issues related to older people can be approached through a social investment perspective. The welfare system of U.K as liberalism should pursue the harmony between central leftists goals and market-friendly tools, so the structural gap was a determining factor about the policy success. Korea society needs to consider such actual problems, going beyond ideological conflicts.