Old-age poverty in Korea remains exceptionally high among OECD countries despite a significant expansion in pension expenditure. This article presents an institutional explanation for such a puzzle. Using ‘targeting within universalism’ as the analytic framework, this study examines the institutional effects of pension models on old-age poverty in Korea. Firstly, comparative analysis finds that universal provision of pensions negatively affects old-age poverty independent of the expenditure size, identifying Korean pensions as the least universal among OECD countries. Secondly, institutional analysis of the Korean pension system explains why the expenditure growth left a large share of the elderly with no or a partial pension. Finally, microsimulation analysis examines alternative assistance pension models for their potential to alter poverty outcomes. Strikingly, universal models alleviate old-age poverty more cost-effectively than the extant targeting model, questioning the efficiency-based justification for low-income targeting. In particular, the universal floor model appears to be the most effective, allowing greater benefits to the poorer without a means test. Even for assistance benefits, universal models may better remedy poverty under such conditions as low take-up among the needy, prevalence of low-income incidence, and pro-rich distribution of extant social transfers.

During COVID-19, the demand for food relief exploded as vulnerable people were suddenly more numerous and visible than ever, for which statutory welfare was not ready to cope with. We examine the role of voluntary and community organizations (VCOs) in food relief in Stockholm, Sweden and Seoul, Korea. Interpretive analysis of interview materials reveals how VCOs perceive their role vis-à-vis the state and take actions against urban food insecurity during the pandemic. The limits of statutory welfare in reaching out to vulnerable individuals reserve an indispensable role for community action in food relief even with the well-developed welfare state. Despite starkly different welfare state contexts, VCOs in both cases complement statutory welfare by swiftly identifying the risk of hunger and organizing community actions to meet the emergent needs. Given that Sweden and Korea represent the least likely cases to observe welfare provision by VCOs, the findings may have implications to general understanding of VCOs as indispensable welfare provider.

Previous comparative research has been guided by the idea that the level of government redistribution accords with the degree of consensus on redistribution among citizens. By extending the scope of analysis to non-Western rich democracies, I offer an alternative account that associates public opinion with actual redistribution. I argue that it is not a broad consensus but a clearly formed contention among citizens that concurs with more redistributive governments. Using the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 2016 data, this study compares social cleavages in redistributive preferences in 23 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Countries with the least egalitarian governments, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Chile, and Israel, have broadly consented high-levels of support for redistribution. What distinguishes them from more redistributive countries is that those common redistributive cleavages such as income, education, and gender are either nonexistent or weak, indicating that the economically disadvantaged do not prefer redistribution significantly more than the advantaged. The statistical results support an explanation of the association between redistributive preferences and the size of redistribution based on “cleavage” rather than “consensus.”