Towards socialising childcare in South Korea: the historical legacy of marketised childcare provision

In this chapter, the historical context of childcare policy development in South Korea involving significant shifts in initial policy goals as well as the remaining policy dilemmas today is explored. More specifically, there is an examination of how the policy agenda has been driven, considering, in particular, the central policy ideas of ‘socialising childcare’ (gonggongsung in Korean) and how this policy discourse ultimately influenced the policy makers’ decisions. Through an analysis of key policy documents, how the issue of socialising childcare came to the fore on the national policy agenda for the first time during the Roh Moo-hyun government (2003–08) is uncovered. It will be shown how the fundamental policy ideas of socialising childcare have been diluted at two turning points: the implementation of the ‘basic subsidy’ in 2005 and ‘universal free childcare’ in 2013. It is argued that the initial policy goal of socialising childcare has been hindered by the predominance of marketised childcare provision and this policy path dependency ultimately led to there being little change in the number of the private for-profit providers in the current childcare market.