개도국 비기여형 연금 정책 도입의 결정요인: 국제 확산과 외부 요인을 중심으로

Abstract

(Purpose) This study examines the external determinants of non-contributory social pension adoption in developing countries. While existing research has emphasized domestic political and institutional factors, this study focuses on the role of international influences—such as development cooperation, trade relations, and transnational policy diffusion—in shaping the spread of residual social protection programs. The aim is to offer a more comprehensive understanding of how external pressures interact with domestic conditions in the politics of welfare expansion across the Global South. (Design/methodology/approach) Using discrete-time event history analysis, this study analyzes the adoption of non-contributory old-age pensions in developing countries between 1974 and 2019. Key explanatory variables include sector-specific official development assistance (ODA), trade linkages with donor and non-donor countries, International Monetary Fund (IMF) involvement, and peer effects based on geographic and income proximity. Domestic socio-economic factors such as population size, regime type, and economic development level are included as control variables to isolate the effects of external drivers. (Findings) The results reveal that external factors play a significant yet differentiated role in shaping policy adoption. Development cooperation in social sectors increases the probability of adopting non-contributory pensions, though its effects are conditional on national institutional settings. Trade with welfare-oriented donor countries fosters policy learning, while trade with competing developing economies exerts a constraining effect. Peer effects are found to operate primarily through geographic proximity, indicating information-based diffusion rather than normative imitation. IMF dependence, in contrast, shows no consistent effect. Among internal controls, democratic governance and larger population size are associated with higher adoption likelihood, suggesting that external influences are filtered through domestic political responsiveness. (Research implications or originality) This study demonstrates that the diffusion of social protection policies in developing countries is not a unidirectional process driven solely by external pressures. Instead, it reflects a complex political economy in which international learning and domestic responsiveness jointly shape institutional change. The findings contribute to the comparative welfare literature by highlighting the conditional and multidimensional nature of global policy diffusion beyond advanced welfare states.