Welfare Geography and the Changing World of Welfare Municipalities : Municipal social spending in Denmark and South Korea analyzed

Abstract

For the last two decades, a growing polarization of providing social care services has been observed across municipalities in every industrialized country. What is interesting is that this has happened irrespective of the type of welfare state regime. Therefore, a crucial question arises: why do individual municipalities behave differently in providing social care services over time across countries? In this regards, the thesis investigates the causal mechanisms behind the changes in municipalities' social spending in Denmark, as an institutional welfare state, and Korea, as a residual welfare state. In addition, the mechanisms in both countries are compared in order to identify some similar logic of welfare municipality change. For empirical analysis, the thesis uses municipal-level data from 1995 to 2004 for both countries and employs descriptive as well as regression analysis. The major findings are threefold. First, welfare geography matters; municipal social spending is often determined by the geographic configuration of different welfare needs (e.g., needs between the elderly and the working females), and welfare needs in general and resources. Second, paradigm shifts in the field of social policy matter; municipal social spending today is affected by not only industry-related policy environments (e.g., economic affluence, old social risks, partisan politics, local fiscal autonomy, etc.), but also post-industry-related elements (e.g., poverty, new social risks, consumer politics, intergovernmental network, etc.). Third, the type of welfare state regime does not matter; in both countries it is revealed that municipalities tend to play a residual role rather than institutional one in the social care provision; more specifically, an increasing role of municipalities in terms of local budget size per capita benefit more the non-welfare businesses than the welfare programs. In conclusion, the thesis argues that the patterns of spatial dimension (i.e., welfare geography) and temporal dimension (i.e., paradigm shifts in social policy) must be taken into account when accessing the welfare municipality change today.