Asset-Based Welfare Regime
자산기반복지체제
A distinctive regime of Korean welfare capitalism, theorized by Kim Do-gyun (2018), in which the state suppressed public welfare expenditure and substituted real estate asset appreciation as the primary means for households to manage life-cycle risks. Originating in the savings-mobilization strategies of the industrialization period, consolidating through the formation of a 'homeowner society' during democratization, and persisting even after the 1997 financial crisis amid financialization and soaring household debt, the regime channels households into home ownership as their de facto pension and safety net. Unlike Western asset-based welfare theory, which emphasizes individual development accounts and redistribution of small financial assets, the Korean variant concentrates welfare functions systematically in a single asset class: real estate.
Sources
- Kim Do-gyun (김도균), A History of Welfare Capitalism in South Korea: Emergence and Change of the Asset-based Welfare (『한국 복지자본주의의 역사: 자산기반복지의 형성과 변화』), Seoul National University Press, 2018 — foundational work defining the Korean asset-based welfare regime as a systemic substitute for public welfare through real estate
- SNU Asia Center publication page: confirms book details and conceptual framework: formation of asset-based capitalism as national savings mobilization, path-dependent changes through democratization and globalization
- Kim Do-gyun, '부동산 인질사회와 국민의집으로 가는 길' (The Real Estate Hostage Society and the Road to the People's Home), LaborPlus (참여와혁신), the author's own summary: housing as old-age security, real estate substituting for the welfare state, the concept of asset-based welfare in Korean context
- Bae Hwanhee, 'Financialisation of Housing in South Korea: State-Sanctioned Popular Speculation on Housing,' SOAS Economics Working Paper No. 263, 2024, uses asset-based welfare as analytical keyword for Korean housing financialization; documents jeonse as private financial mechanism