국제비교지수를 활용한 한국의 복지지출 수준 평가

Abstract

There are different voices around whether Korea’s welfare spending is at an appropriate level or not. Utilizing the international comparison index (ICI), this paper intends to take stock of Korea’s social welfare spending from an objective point of view. Given the concern that the increasing welfare spending may undermine the fiscal stability of the government, it is important to analyze whether Korea still has room to spend more on social welfare. According to ICI which takes into account socio-economic differences of individual countries, Korea’s social welfare spending is indexed at 62.3 and Korea’s tax burden is indexed at 65.9 on average, during the period 2003–2013. Since those values are lower than 100, it is fair to say that Korea spends less on social welfare and Korean people less burdened than other OCED countries in relative terms. The reason why Korea ranked low in ICI can be found in its unique circumstances (except those reflected in the index calculation as socio-economic factors) as follows: ① its public pension scheme has not matured enough; ② Korea maintained a growth-oriented policy stance for a long period of time; and ③ its society has not reached consensus on the increased spending on social welfare. Since Korea’s rapidly aging population is likely to increase welfare spending and decrease tax revenues, efforts should be made in various aspects to maintain fiscal stability. Reasonable adjustments to the tax burden and/or the government expenditure by function to deal with the growing welfare spending would go a long way in improving the consolidated fiscal balance.