Description

Chair and discussant: Yoonkyung Lee (Sociology, U of T)

Speaker 1
Ito Peng, “The COVID-19 Childcare and School Closures and their Impacts on Working Parents with Small Children: Korea-Canada Comparison”
Abstract
This presentation discusses the impacts of childcare and school closures in Canada and South Korea during the COVID-19. We undertook two waves of panel surveys in South Korea – June 2020 and April 2021 – to explore how childcare and school closures have affected working parents’ work-family balance. I compare results of the Korean surveys with the Statistics Canada’s survey of parents conducted in June 2020.
Bio
Professor Ito Peng is a Canada Research Chair in Global Social Policy at the Department of Sociology, University of Toronto. She is an expert in global social policy, specializing in gender, migration and care policies. She has written extensively on social policies and political economy of care in Asia Pacific. Her teaching and research focus on comparative social policy, and gender, care and migration policies. She just completed a 7-year international partnership research project entitled Gender, Migration, and the Work of Care (http://cgsp.ca/), and is now engaged in two research projects: The Care Economy: Gender-sensitive Macroeconomic Models for Policy Analysis, and Care Economies in Context: Towards Sustainable Social and Economic Development. “Government policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and their impacts on family, women, and workers”

Speaker 2
Young Jun Choi, “Social policy responses to Covid-19 in South Korea: Towards a smaller welfare state?”
Abstract
As COVID-19 continues for nearly two years, its effect extends beyond public health to have a far-reaching impact on individuals and society. In a situation where various social risks have not been resolved since the IMF economic crisis, COVID-19 is highly likely to make these social risks more ‘wicked’ and simultaneously create new risks. This study intends to discuss what social risks COVID-19 creates and how Korean welfare state has responded to them. To this end, two national surveys in 2020 and 2021 were analyzed together with focus group interviews in 2020. As a result, social risks in the era of COVID-19 comprehensively appear not only in employment and income, but also skills and knowledge, care, and social relationships. In particular, the self-employed experienced the greatest hardship as well as women and the younger generation. While the educational gap among students is widening, care burden of family members has increased. Due to strict social distancing and isolation, anxiety disorders and depression significantly increased. Against such extensive damage, existing social policies played only limited roles, and the emergency disaster relief policy had clear limits in stabilizing individual lives. Despite the comprehensive and profound social risks, if Korean welfare state sticks to the current fiscal conservatism, it is highly likely to move to a smaller welfare state.
Bio
Young Jun Choi is Professor, Department of Public Administration, and Director of the Institute for Welfare State Research, Yonsei University in South Korea. He also serves as Chair of East Asian Social Policy Research Network. His research interests include aging and public policy, social investment policy, comparative welfare state theories, and East Asian social policy. He has published many articles in international journals and his recent book includes Welfare Reform and Social Investment Policy in Europe and East Asia (Policy Press, 2021).

This virtual event is organized by the Centre for the Study of Korea, University of Toronto and sponsored by the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Toronto.