KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

Restructuring of Korea’s public welfare service delivery system is currently taking concrete shape and underway on a full scale. In this background, this study aims to explore and discuss what impact the restructuring has on the women and family welfare service delivery system, what changes are currently taking place in the system, and how will the system collaborate with the public welfare service delivery system.

For this purpose, we diagnosed the trends and issues of the restructuring of the public welfare service delivery system and analyzed the current state of the women and family welfare service delivery system. We also examined how people involved in the women and family welfare service delivery system experienced and recognized the restructuring of public welfare service delivery system, and suggested measures for collaborative operation of the public welfare service delivery system and the women and family welfare service delivery system. Major research methods of this study included the literature review, interviews, and focus group interviews with experts and people involved in the public welfare service delivery system and the women and family welfare service delivery system.

Major research findings are as follows: first, the public welfare service delivery system moved toward integration, that is, toward providing integrated services in response to the public demands for restructuring the fragmentary expansion of the system. In providing such integrated services, local governments played a central role. This restructuring trend will continue to go on within the big frame. Second, the women and family welfare service delivery system was established as its own delivery system, separately from welfare policies, in the process of forming women’s policies and family policies. However, related tasks are not expressly described nor given significant weight in local governments. Also, the system is operated in poor service conditions, including the personnel structure and the budget size, because the provision of its services relies largely on non-profit organizations in the form of subsidies. At the central government level, services related to the system are divided into the two ministries, namely, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. In the local governments, the system has some areas that are not included in the scope of social welfare projects, hence it is limited in providing connected and integrated services together with public welfare services. Third, people involved in the women and family welfare service delivery system did not recognize the restructuring trends of the public welfare service delivery system well. Also, there was no active cooperation between the two systems enough to perceive the restructuring trends, such as identifying cases or participating in meetings for management of cases of connected and integrated services. Also, the system had difficulties in collaborating with the public welfare service delivery system from the aspects of poor service conditions and pursuit of values.

Demands for welfare services are expected to become more complex and diverse and to increase in the total amount. Because diverse issues are highly likely to emerge in that process, the system should cope more professionally and positively with the issues. Therefore, in collaboration with the public welfare service delivery system, the women and family welfare service delivery system needs to capture not just tangible issues for women and families but also intangible issues to enable its professional intervention. Along with this, the system should also strengthen its service foundation for undertaking the role of providing differentiated and professional services as well as providing integrated services related to women and family issues.