Public attitudes towards government’s role in unemployment provision in three East Asian countries

ABSTRACT

Public support for unemployment provision is essential to provide political legitimacy for welfare policy arrangements and yet it is understudied in East Asian welfare states. In contrast with the proposed unfavourable attitudes towards welfare among East Asian countries from the developmental/productivist perspectives, the study suggests socio-demographic and ideological differences in public attitudes towards the role of government in unemployment provision within and across Japan, (South) Korea, and Taiwan, which differ in welfare production regime and extent of labour market dualization. Data from the 2016 Role of Government V survey of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) was analysed. Findings revealed lower levels of public support for unemployment provision in large firm-oriented welfare production regimes like Japan and Korea, though in which labour market outsiders such as women, younger people, and unemployed workers were more supportive than their counterparts. Despite cross-national attitudinal differences, higher levels of support were consistently found in the lowest-income groups across three East Asian countries. The study provides new evidence of diverse patterns of welfare attitudes regarding unemployment provision in the East Asian welfare regimes. It also presents the need of (un)employment protection among labour market outsiders and low-income groups within these countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Welfare attitudes
• unemployment
• East Asian welfare states
• welfare production regime
• role of government
• ISSP

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data were extracted from the International Social Survey Programme: Role of Government V - ISSP 2016. GESIS Data Archive, Cologne. ZA6900 Data file Version 2.0.0. Available at https://doi.org/10.4232/1.13052

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17516234.2024.2343574.

Notes

1. 5-point-score=(((B – A) * (4-point-score – a))/(b – a)) + A.

a = original scale minimum (for a 4-point Likert, 1)

b = original scale maximum (for a 4-point Likert, 4)

A = new scale minimum (for a 5-point Likert, 1)

B = new scale maximum (for a 5-point Likert, 5)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chieh-Wei Niu

Chieh-Wei Niu is a Research Assistant at the Institute of Health Policy and Management in National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. Her research interests include welfare attitudes, unemployment provision, and labour market structures in East Asian countries.

Chung-Yang Yeh

Chung-Yang Yeh is a Professor in Department of Sociology, Soochow University, Taipei, Taiwan. His main research interests include ‘comparative East Asian welfare states’, ‘welfare attitudes’ and ‘pension policy’. He published Journal articles and book chapters focusing on pension policies and social investment policies in East Asia.

Ming-Jui Yeh

Ming-Jui Yeh is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Health Policy and Management and the Department of Public Health in National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. His research interests include comparative health and welfare systems and public health ethics.

Yawen Cheng

Yawen Cheng is a Professor at the Institute of Health Policy and Management, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University. She studies psychosocial and policy aspects of occupational health issues. Recent work concerns mental health in the workplace and workers’ compensation policies.