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KMID : 1001320160430010051
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Social Welfare Policy
2016 Volume.43 No. 1 p.51 ~ p.79
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The Exclusion from the Employment Insurance System and Policy Issues: Focused on Unemployment Benefit
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Pang Ha-Nam
Nahm Jae-Wook
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Abstract
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In this article we critically review Korean unemployment insurance scheme to evaluate its coverage and adequacy in terms of social protection. In particular we focus on the degree and extent of dead zone in terms of (a)its substantive coverage and take-up rate determined by qualification conditions and of (b)the duration adequacy of its benefit period. In its formal application mandate Korean unemployment insurance is supposed to cover almost all ‘workers’ regardless of the firm size and employment type. But we find that many workers in the secondary labor market, especially those under fixed-term, part-time, or daily employment contract stay in the dead zone of its substantive protection (about 36% of all wage workers). Much of the protection dead zone is due to its strict qualification condition for benefit (i.e., minimum contribution period and/or involuntary termination of employment contract) in the context of Korean labor market. Another source of protection dead zone is its relatively short benefit period (now 90-240 days depending on insuree’s contribution period and age-category). About 65% of the beneficiaries are found to be exhausting their respective benefit period before they get re-employed or exit the labor force. We suggest that, given its dual structure of labor market and large self-employed sector, Korea needs some type of unemployment assistance scheme which could cover the protection dead zone left by her formal unemployment insurance scheme.
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KEYWORD
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Employment Insurance, Unemployment Benefit, Protection Dead Zone, Unemployment Assistance, Social Safety-net
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