In the recent discussion about the impact of economic globalization upon the welfare regime among comparative political economy scientists, the 'Varieties of Capitalism' (VoC) approach has aroused much attention and provoked many debates. Centered on the crucial role of the firms in the coordination of economic activities, this approach highlights the different weights of coordinative capacity of the firms in the different political economies. Measured by different coordinative institutions, two regimes across advanced industrial democracies have been specified: Liberal Market Economies (LMEs) and Coordinated Market Economies (CMEs). Along the debate on the convergence or divergence trends of the political economies in the context of globalization, this approach contributes much to the analysis of the responding strategies of the different political economies under preexisting institutional constraints. However, as Jackson and Deeg (2006) has indicated, most of the empirical analysis using VoC approach center mainly on the OECD countries. The East-Asia as a distinct form of capitalism has been ignored1. This panel aims to contribute to this field. By analyzing the welfare and labor market reform in East-Asia, this panel tries to examine the explaining power of the VoC approach in analyzing the East-Asian social protection system reform since the financial crisis in 1997. By focusing on an emerging quais-institutional social protection system, this panel aims to examine the 'universal' validity of the VoC approach in the non-West countries.

The insight of the VoC approach shows that it offers a fresh and broad analytical tool for examining the interchange between (capitalist) market system and non-market institution under different historical and societal conditions. In the theoretical tradition of comparative political economy and economic sociology, there is nothing new to explore the institutional or non-institutional preconditions of the market-building process.

Durkheim, for example, has indicated the non-contract precondition of the contractian system.

The advantage of the VoC approach lies in the probability of extending its analysis to the other non-Western political economies, particularly that of emerging market economies.

VoC's approach could open a window for the analysis of institutional complementarities between production and welfare regimes, particularly for the cases in the welfare state building process (eg. the transitional economy). His suggestion allows us to approach the problematic of welfare state building with an institutional method. In this method, the macro- and micro analytical level can be combined. In the macro-level, we can explain what institutional arrangements as equilibrium have been chosen in the process of options selection. In the micro-level, the incentives of the related actors (state and firms) can be specified. The above problematic will be examined in this panel.

Jackson, Gregory and Richard Deeg (2006) How many Varieties of Capitalism? Comparing the Comparative Institutional Analysis of Capitalist Diversity. Max-Planck Institute for the Studies of Societies Discussion Paper 06/2.

Huber, Evelyne (ed.) (2002) Models of Capitalism: Lessons for Latin America, Pennsylvania State University Press.

There are currently 18 Veteran Care Homes in Taiwan. After the 1949 defeat of the KMT government, large number of soldiers migrated from China to Taiwan. Various ways were initiated to help the re-settlement of these soldiers, such as factories, farms, and occupation training facilities, to keep these soldiers from further uproar. In 1953, four Care Homes were established for the disabled and the old veterans. For about 50 years, a political overcoat had been cast upon the Veteran Care Homes and care in these big institutions was considered charity by the KMD government. Large scaled institutional care also excluded the old and disabled veterans from the society. However, as the ageing of the WWII soldiers continues, the original residents in these Homes have gradually expired, which created a tremendous treat to the survival of these Homes. In the mean time, democratization has strengthened the welfare rights and consumer rights of the remained veterans. In order to face the multiple challenges and to compete in the care service market, the Veteran Care Homes have gone through a series of reforms since 2000, earmarked by three times of comprehensive evaluations. This paper will introduce the history and the reform of the Veteran Care Homes in the 21st century and report on how the Veteran Care Homes have transformed their culture from charity to quality care. Data collected from the three comprehensive evaluations will be analyzed in six areas: organizational administration and management, life care and professional services, service facilities and safety measures, protection for resident rights, reforms and improvements, and bonus questions. Indicators used in the evaluations were originally designed by the Central Governemt to evaluate the non-veteran public and private elderly care homes.

Full paper download: Yang P_veterans care homes.pdf

At the end of 2007, the population structure of Japan has entered the super-aged society, ratio of the aged exceeded 20%. Also, Japan will face increasing aged population until 2040 according to the Latest Population Statistics. Due to the outflow of young generations in small municipalities, the aging in these small municipalities is more rapidly. Facing the rapid aging population, the Japanese government has regarded community welfare as an important issue. The issue is to find a way to enrich the welfare system for elderly, and construct a sustainable community welfare network. As a part of decentralization, Japanese government carried out a reform in the taxation system which is called the trinity reform in 2004. There are three major affairs: 1.abolish or reduce national treasury subsidies; 2.transfer tax resources to local governments; 3.reduce local allocation tax. The second affair of the trinity reform, transfer of tax resources to local government, was carried out at a later stage. Due to this decision, the tax allocation of local governments was reduced by 3.4 trillion yen during the 4 years of this reform (2004-2007). Under these circumstances, I focus on the progress of the aging from a different angle in this research. After considering whether "Making a Town of Welfare" is correlating with economic ripple effect, the aim of the research is to determine the following two points. First, search for the ideal method of carrying out sustainable community welfare in small municipalities. Second, search for the key elements in order to tie completeness of welfare system to increase self-financing resource.

Full paper download: Hsu M_community welfare and securing source.pdf

The ethics of the Chinese medical profession has been guided by and fashioned in accordance with the Chinese Communist Party's ideology since the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. It has been an ideological demand for doctors to serve the people unselfishly. Role models, represented by Dr Norman Bethune, have been promoted for medical professionals to follow and emulate. In the pre-reform era, public ownership of means of production and resources and command economy were established to facilitate the ideological commitment to serving the people in health care, as well as in other spheres. Since 1978, Chinese economy has undergone profound changes brought about by market-oriented reforms in almost every economic domain, including health care. In the meantime, however, the guiding principles for professional ethics of medicine continue to be those inherited from the command economy, featuring an emphasis on serving the people selflessly. Consequently, the market-oriented health care reform has created a dilemma that has long confused the medical profession, misled health policymaking, and partially caused the public outcry over the health reform. This paper examines the ideological core of the ethics of the Chinese medical profession formulated in the pre-reform era and the dilemma it has caused in the reform-era.

Full paper download: Yang J_communist ideology and professional ethics.pdf

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Japanese aspects of the international migration of health care workers, also known as the "globalization of care", through introducing the circumstances of foreign nationals who are engaged in care work or care worker education in Japan. Due to population aging and low birth rates, Japan is expected to face labour shortages in the future; the long term care labour market in particular is drawing attention. According to official government policy, these future shortages are expected to be dealt with by activating domestic labour sources. That is one reason why there is no visa for care workers available in Japan at this point.

Despite the fact that there is no visa available, there are some ways for foreigners to enter this market, and there are three clearly distinguishable groups already doing so, or scheduled to do so in the near future. One group consists of foreign students in welfare education at universities. The members of the second group are mostly Filipina residents with visas without work limitations (marriage etc.) and 2nd degree Home Helper licenses. The third group includes Certified Care Worker candidates from Indonesia and the Philippines. This paper, after giving an overall introduction to the current Japanese long-term care labour market, immigration policy and these three groups mentioned above, analyzes the various attitudes towards foreign care labour, based on an interview survey conducted in 2007 from October to November among the most important domestic stakeholders. Finally, on the basis of this survey, it summarizes the most important questions and problems concerning the future possibility of introducing foreign care workers to the Japanese long-term care market, and points out the possibly necessary support for the migrant groups educated in Japan and already present in the market, so that they can contribute to Japanese long-term care as much as possible. Finally, necessary topics for future research are also indicated.

Full paper download: Virag V_foreign nationals in long term care.pdf

The long term care insurance conduced an epoch-making change to the elderly person welfare policy of the local government. The Takanosu-cho in Akita Prefecture had attracted attention with its "advanced welfare municipality" before the long term care insurance. However, the conflict of the citizens who demanded original service of the local government that exceeded the long term care insurance and the ones who requested only service in the long term care insurance occurred. As a result, the head of the local government was alternated and the welfare policy was changed radically. Why did the advanced welfare policy in the 1990's change in the 2000's? First, there was a conflict between the welfare policy of a central government and that of the local government after financial crisis. Second, there was a limit in the autonomy of the local government in the long term care insurance management. Third, the consensus building between the citizens about the burden of paying tax and the welfare service supply failed.

Full paper download: Park H_long term care insurance management.pdf

Extreme individualism and egoism derived from intense industrialization as well as the trend towards nuclear families has led to the weakening of the social position of the elderly. Abuse of the elderly in the form of diminishing support and respect grows more serious day by day. Because it is no longer merely a family matter, now is the time for society and the government to address this issue. This study, therefore, focuses on the detailed causes of the abuse of the elderly and especially how their financial situations can influence the degree and level of their abuse. The main causes of the abuse of the elderly are as follows: self-induced personal reasons, an abuser-related cause inducing mistreatment, an interaction cause between abusers and the elderly, a living environment-related cause, a socio-cultural cause, and a socio-political cause. Apparently, there are no existing studies on this specific issue; however, documented references and data from Internet searches led me to determine that the most serious cause leading to abuse of the elderly is their lack of economic power. The strongest cause of the abuse of the elderly is directly related to how much they have; the more they have, the less the abuse ratio is. Also, their financial situations and the number of times they meet their sons and daughters directly affects the elders' living standards and abuse risks. Recently even something like a modern-version of "Korea-jang" has happened, and it shows that the support level of sons and daughters greatly depends on their parents' assets. Since now the most important thing in society is money, the main cause of elder abuse is definitely the elders' lack of economic power.

Full paper download: Yoon H_financial insufficiency and abuse.pdf

The purpose of this study is to analyze the changes of day-care policy in Korea from historical perspectives. The methods of the study include both literature review and interviews. For the analysis of policy changes, literatures of the policies from 1960 to 2008 were reviewed. In addition, interviews are used to explore some policies in detail. There appears to be three main shifts of the policies: the deficit period, the participatory period, and the period of children's right. The deficit period includes day-care policies for children in need. The policies of participatory period focused on the participation of the parents, teachers, and administrators in the decision-making process of policies and administration as down-top process. Finally, the policies of children's right emphasized the rights of children in day-care. These changes were found to be influenced by social, political, and cultural changes related to history in Korea. The deficit period was mainly influenced by social change whereas both the participatory period and the period of children' right were mostly influenced by political factors. Even though those policies are legitimate, some of those policies are found to be ineffective in administration system. The reason of the ineffectiveness is attributed to the cultural factors as well as administration system. In conclusion, the importance of cultural aspects of policy and administration will be discussed.

Full paper download: Song S_day-care policy in Korea.pdf

Recently there are many social problems that happens to new-social risk issues. Especially the erosion of the male breadwinner/female homemaker family form constitutes one of the critical challenges confronting contemporary welfare states. And it is requested to solve the problems of life-work balance. So I think that child care is an important social problem is related to the role of state. For this purpose I studied response of socializing care in welfare state restructuring with focus on child care policy. Child care policy is representative policy be able to be socialized care-work, and then it is also a policy that is related to women's labor market participation.

So, this paper studied divergent patterns of response in child care policy comparatively with focus on eight countries - Sweden, Danish, Dutch, Italy, French, Australia, Britain, and the United States. For this ones, I use two analysis standards. One is publicity of child care services, and the other is child care politics. As a result of there is a distinct response difference regardless of traditional welfare regime, and I've known that the cause of difference is on the child care politics. This paper aims to get the implications of political by making a comparative study with child care policy of other countries.

Full paper download: Lee S_restructuring process of welfare states.pdf

The changes of economic, social, and demographic circumstances have posed new challenges to post-war welfare states in recent decades. The rise of the service economy, aging population, increasing labour market participation of women, and changes of family structure have transformed the social risks which welfare states faced in post-war era. Among these new challenges, reconciliation of work and family life is one of the most significant issues. Failure to deal with the difficulties in reconciling work and family life could hinder parents' participation in the labour market. In addition, some parents have to adjust their working patterns such as taking part-time jobs or flexible work to fulfil their family roles and care responsibilities. These arrangements could lead to the loss of income and welfare entitlements. Therefore, many welfare states have formulated new policies to support the combination of work and care. However, although it has been an important concern across European countries, it is not clear to what extent this social risk exists in Taiwan. Due to relatively lower women's labour market participation and strong emphasis on the family to provide care for children and the elderly, the difficulties in reconciling work and family life in Taiwan are usually ignored and underestimated. To extend the understanding of this issue and related policy reforms in Taiwan, this paper aims to examine to what extent the difficulties in reconciling work and family life can be identified as an emerging social risk in Taiwan. Moreover, this paper will review relevant policy reforms in recent years. From this analysis, it can be shown how new policy solutions are affected by existing welfare arrangements and welfare regime frameworks.

Full paper download: Tsai P_work and family life in Taiwan.pdf

In Korean Assembly the total number of gender related legislations and the rate of passed legislation drastically increased from the year 1998. The question is why did gender related legislations increase from that year? To answer this question, I address the policy reforms that had occurred in Korea and moreover the reasons to such institutional changes. After analyzing the institutional change in the policy making structure, I show how the institutions had impact on the gender related legislations. Briefly, the results show that the women's movement in South Korea had attempted to engage in institutional politics and to place their gender concerns on the political agenda. And under the advent of reformative regimes since 1998, the women's movement has succeeded in dramatically increasing the number of women legislators in the National Assembly and in establishing a formal political institution, the Ministry of Gender Equality (MGE), which represents their cause. Those institutional changes were crucial causes of the drastic increase on gender related legislations. Thus, in this paper, I descriptively assess the increase of gender-relevant legislation inside the National Assembly. I then illuminate the causes of drastic increase in gender related legislation by applying the influence of two major policy institution reforms. I, as a result, demonstrate that the women's movement in South Korea was successful in intervening in political institutions and the political institutional change was successful in increasing gender related legislations.

Full paper download: Oh E_movement institutionalization and consequences.pdf

The purpose of this study is to investigate foster care characteristics and to identify the relationship between social support recognized by foster care children and psychosocial adjustment according to the three types of foster home. For this, total 465 foster children who are listed on 16 foster care support centers were selected and surveyed. The results showed that there were several differences in foster children's characteristics and foster home characteristics. In comparison to the non-relative foster home, specifically, kinship foster care home showed relatively poorer socioeconomic environments. However, there was no difference in psychosocial adjustment of foster children among the three types of foster home. In addition, several variables were identified to influence on the psychosocial adjustment of foster children. First, school grade, health status, self-efficiency, the reason placed in foster home, monthly income, peer support, family support were influenced on the depression and especially peer and family support were played a role to decrease the depression. Second, duration in foster care, self-efficiency, the reason placed in foster home, caregiver age, household debt, housing type, peer support were identified as important factors to explain the aggression but, the family support and teacher support were not played roles in relieving the aggression. Based on the results, several policy and program implication were suggested.

Pension reform still remains one of the major government agendas in South Korea, despite a series of reforms in 1998 and 2007. This paper argues that the unsatisfactory reforms were inevitable since those reform packages were based on traditional parametric reform retaining the DB (Defined Benefit) principle. Thus, this paper argues for a paradigm shift in designing the Korean pension system, which utilizes a Swedish-style NDC (Non-Financial Defined Contribution) earning-related pension plus a supplementary basic pension as an alternative model. This paper is divided into three parts. The first analyzes and evaluates the pension reforms concerning the financial sustainability. The second part discusses the current state of basic security for the elderly and recently introduced basic pension scheme, The third part combines the two reform issues and introduces a detailed framework for an NDC-based multi-tier pension system.

Full paper download: Yang J_pension reform issues.pdf

Since the first debate to introduce the National Welfare Pension Scheme in the early 1970s, the process of Korea's pension insurance reform, targeting to extend insurance coverage nation-widely, has undergone the dynamics of policy-making and change for nearly three decades. Diverse policy actors have engaged in the debates of pension insurance reform, in order to maximize their interests, making the process of the debates very turbulent and sometimes paralyzing. It is of course that the social and political contexts have greatly changed during the periods of debates. Researchers, at least, can confirm five stages of debates during the long standing turbulences of Korea's pension insurance reform process and this gives them a great chance to compare the dynamics of Korea's pension politics over time. The following are the main debates of pension insurance reform that can be comparatively analyzed:

1. Formation and frustration of the National Welfare Pension Scheme in 1973 (the Park Chung-hee administration)
2. Enactment of the National Pension Act in 1986 and the inauguration of the National Pension Scheme for the employed in 1988 (the Chun Doo-hwan administration)
3. Extension of pension coverage to the rural self-employed in 1995 (the Kim Young-sam administration)
4. Extension of pension coverage to the urban self-employed in 1999 (the Kim Dae-jung administration)
5. Pension insurance reform in 2006-2007 under the Rho Moo-hyun government.

Against these backdrops, this article aims to analyze the dynamics of pension insurance reform in Korea, putting a special emphasis on the comparison of the five sub-cases of the debates on pension insurance reform. For the aim, this article intends to establish the comprehensive analytical framework combining relevant theoretical perspectives, such as policy networks and advocacy coalitions, in order to adequately explore the dynamics of Korea's pension insurance reform from the viewpoint of process-oriented perspective. The following are the research questions that this article tries to answer through the longitudinal comparative analysis of the pension insurance reform process of Korea.

1. How have the policy contexts been changed over time and in what ways have they influenced the dynamics of pension insurance reform?
2. How, and why, have the attributes and types of pension insurance policy networks changed over time? Which interests have dominated the policy networks?
3. In what ways have policy actors established advocacy coalitions within policy networks and how have these coalitions interacted with each other?
4. What have been the belief systems, interests and strategies of main policy actors?
5. What have been the policy outcomes of each stage of pension insurance reform and whose interests have been mainly reflected in policy outcomes?
6. To what extent do the differences in pension insurance policy networks explain the differences in policy outcomes?

Full paper download: Kim S_politics of pension insurance reform.pdf

This paper examines trends and gender differences in time use in Korea. The economic approach suggests that changes in women's employment, the delay in marriage and decline in fertility have reduced demand for unpaid work. As a result, the amount of time spent on paid and unpaid work between men and women is converging. At the same time, the gender perspective argues that due to changes in economics, demographics and norms the differentiated time use between men and women can be fine-tuned, but the gender inequality remains fundamental. This research examines the Korean case in light of these explanations. In traditional Korean society, gender roles were rigidly divided. In post industrial society, however, changes in women's role and in the family are evident. These changes have been facilitated by the decline in fertility, the increase in divorce, the increase in women's labor market participation, and the decrease in the number of extended families. This research uses the national representative time use survey data of 1999 and 2004 and examines how much time women and men spent on paid work, unpaid work and non-productive activities. This paper argues that women's increased involvement in paid work, changes in gender role, and in family forms may have increased the amount of time that men spend on unpaid care work. However, the increases are far from meaningful for gender relations in practice despite the significant social and economic changes.

After severe debates for over a decade, Taiwan finally enacted the National Pension Act in July 2007. The National Pension scheme, to be in place in October 2008, covers those who are not protected by employment-based social insurance schemes. It is a great achievement for Taiwan's social protection system as it fills up the last piece of its old age income protection system. However, it also deepens the stratification of the system. This paper reviews the process of the enactment and argues that the idea of institutionism can explain its development. In terms of political institutions, Taiwan experienced a divided government from 2000-2008. Different opinions between the Executive and the Legislative sectors resulted in the delayed enactment of the Act. In addition, frequent government reshuffles from 2000-2008 have also created an unfavorable environment for discussions on the national pension bills. In terms of social protection institutions, given the fact that different social insurance schemes were already in place for government employees, soldiers, and labors, the government's only practical strategy for expanding pension coverage was to establish a new scheme for those not in other schemes. This paper concludes by suggesting more research to elaborate the relation between political and social protection institutions and social security reform.

In Taiwan, different from the prediction of theory of modernization, its public pension system does not completely develop with economic development. It was until the advent of democratization of the early 1990s that Taiwan's government decided to initiate an ambitious pension expansion plan to catch up with advanced welfare states. This is the so-called national pension reform ever hoped by many Taiwanese to ensure old-age security. But after that Taiwan's national pension reform gained little progress. Even though the self-professed welfare defender- Democratic Progress Party (DPP) took power in the 2000 president election, new government also could not find way out of reform impasse. In reality, there have been incompatible ideas and competing political interests amidst national pension reform. But most of existing studies seem to focus much on party competition and give scant attention to this phenomenon (Lee, 1996; Cheng et al, 1999; Lin, 2000; Shih, 2001; Fu, 2000; Chen, 2002 and 2005; Chen 2004; Chang, 2003; Lou and Chen, 2005; Cheng, 2004; Yeh, 2005; Lin, 2005). Moreover, making story complicated, the seemingly no- hope national pension legislation was unexpectedly passed in the Legislative Yuan in 2007. The latter policy development has apparently made many seemingly plausible explanations of pension predicament lose their explanatory power at present time.

In order to answer the above intriguing problems, this article emphasizes the importance of policy legacies in shaping interests and ideas of relevant policy actors. But different from previous studies, I broaden the concept of policy heritage to include functional alternatives to state pensions. In this respect, a specialized term- old-age security mix (OASM) is coined to refer to the configuration of these components. Basically, this article will be organized as follows: The first section discusses the specialties of Taiwan's national pension reform, whereas the second part develops our argument about why to incorporate OASM in Taiwan's case study. I then grasp the characteristics of Taiwan's OASM and track its change since the mid 1980s. The final section sums up how the features of OASM might affect Taiwan's national pension reform over the past 14 years.

Full paper download: Lin Y_faltering pension reform.pdf

This analysis on the pension politics centers on the roles and limitations of party politics and social consultation intermediating between the state and civil society. The mechanisms of communication between the state and civil society, namely, the political parties and social consultation, didn't work adequately regarding pension reform process. At the stage of agenda formation each political party admitted problems suggested by civil society, but the final decision was a result of transaction behind the curtain. The final decision was made purely through negotiation and transaction among the political parties and the government. In the stage, there was no room to discuss the positions of labor, capital or other social groups. The political parties could not play the role of a channel for civil society's positions to be reflected in discussions in the National Assembly, and their relation with the government was strongly influenced by bureaucrats in the Ministry of Health. On the other hand, the joint meeting of social organizations was held while the attempt of compromise among the political parties was continued in the National Assembly. The attempt of social consultation through the joint meeting of social organizations activated communication on the pension issue inside civil society. Although various interest groups and social organizations displayed the possibility of agreement based on trust, the link between the joint meeting and the government was extremely weak. The process of finding alternative plans was stopped by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Though the ruling power had been changed due to democratization, social policy reform was controlled by 'bureaucrats'. This suggests that the reform of social policies was made through formal democratic systems but without substantial contents of democracy based on public discussions and the coordination of interests since democratization.

Full paper download: Joo E_political dynamics of pension reform.pdf

The purpose of this study was to make a comparative analysis of the level of life control by parents, family rules of living and public manners of elementary school students from three different countries. The subjects in this study were 5,249 fourth and sixth graders from Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing. The major findings of the study were as follows:

The Chinese parents held their children's lives under the most tight control, followed by the Korean and Japanese ones. family rules of living were most strict in China, followed by Japan and Korea. In terms of the level of public manners, there were gaps among the nations as well. The Chinese students were most courteous, followed by their counterparts in Korea and then in Japan. Lastly, it was clearly demonstrated that the elementary students' appropriate public manners had interaction effect relationship with their parents' ability to control their behavior and family rules, being the case in Japan. In other words, students who displayed good behavior at home, but getting lots of parental control showed poor behavior out in public. The efforts by this study to compare life control by parents, family rules and school children's public manners in the three different countries, to examine life control by parents in parent- child relationship, family rules of living and to look into the characteristics of the three factors are expected to contribute to getting an accurate grip on the public manners of school students from the three nations.

Dramatic changes have been taken place in social services in China in recent decades. The 'over-burdened' government retreated from the role of an omnipotent provider to a regulator. The re-emergence of 'minban' (meaning operated by the citizen) school is a salient example demonstrating these changes. This paper will analyze the operation logic of 'minban' secondary school situated in the unique institutional context from the new institutional perspective. The concept of institutional environment and the institutional logic are integrated to provide a framework explaining the development and function of 'minban' school in social transformation. On one hand, the multiple institutional environments, including the controlled decentralization of governments, the investment-familism of consumer choice, impact 'minban' secondary schools via legitimacy and interest mechanism. On the other hand, the 'minban' secondary school adapts and functions in the context, as well as shaping the environment with its own strategies. In addition, the operation of 'minban' secondary school is not only qualified by the external environment, but also based on the institutional image by itself. The processes and conditions facing 'minban' secondary school in China reveal the special organizational dynamics under rapid social transformation. The emerging problems and social implications of the 'minban secondary school required our attention. This paper will describe and analyze the development and problems facing 'minban' education in China. It will also assess the dynamic process between the institutional environment and organization, and contribute to the theoretical application of neo-institutionalism.

The paper focuses on the formation of gender equity education policy in recent education reform in Taiwan. Gender equity education in Taiwan has been influenced by many factors, such as the developments and changes of politics, economy and society. The political, economical and cultural developments and changes also partially contributed to the flourish of social movements including women's movements, which provided the fundamental basis for giving an impetus to the development of gender equity education. The interactions of politics, socio-culture and economy resulted in the political transition of a democratic society that facilitated the diverse ideologies and people's enthusiasm for involving in social movements.

In the case of women's movements, the improvement of economic status increased the opportunities for women to receive higher education. These highly educated elite women who held a desire to revolute society then promoted the emergence of organised women movements and finally formed a trend of women's liberation. This trend has pervaded from women's movements to education. This paper will draw on parts of the results of the thesis to distinguish five features of the development of women's movements and gender relevant policies in Taiwan: a) they are very closely linked to the political development and tend to make changes within existing legal system; b) the political party competition is favourable for the development of women's movements; c) the development of government policies in relation to gender issues follows the model that from bottom-up to top-down; d) there is a trend that from specific policies toward gender mainstreaming of the development of government policies and; e) the ideologies of gender education policies seem to have a 'homogeneity-binary-diversity' tendency which accords with the directions in western feminist thought after the 1970s.

Nowadays, there are many words which have the term such as 'multi-cultural', 'multi-ethnicity'. Those are usually representing diversity of one society. In reality, past 10 years, foreigners who reside in South Korea are rapidly increasing from 95,778 (1994) to 698,161 (2006). It changes Korean society a lot and it is time for changing attitude of Korean. At the same time, there are many academic papers which deals with the people who reside in South Korea, such as 'New settlers'(North Korean refugee defector), migration workers, woman migrants. However, most of the projects by government are limited to the 'labor' since they have to focus on support policies.

In reality, the reason that foreigners come to South Korea is not limited to 'labor'. Nowadays, not only goods and labor forces but also images, knowledge, and education can be the factors for the international migration. Especially, in the case of 'study abroad', from past to present, It was general that people go abroad to study from East Asia countries to Western countries, to the contrast that, there are influx of student migration to Asian countries nowadays. It is easy to see foreign student in and out of school and there are many ways to communicate with them.

'Student migration' is use as 'Yoo hak' or liuxue(留學) in East Asia. However, the concept of 'student migration' is focused on 'Hak'('學'), so it can not show the diversity of student migration fully. Also, 'Yoo'('留') means 'stay for a while' which is very ambiguous meaning. It makes people regard student migrants as just visitors so they don't pay attention to their life and adjustment. In fact, student migration takes at least 6 months to 5-6 years. In addition, some student migrants regard their migration experience as spring board toward their long term migration so student migration gives considerably strong impact on receiving country. Nowadays, Korea try to attract many foreign student by student migration project, 'Study Korea' to become a 'receiving country' instead of 'sending country. For that, countries have to change the concept of those students as a migrants, instead of visitors to become a receiving country.

This study aims to discuss about 'student migration' which is undervalued in East Asia. Also it aims to consider existing theory that based on 'Asia->Western country' pattern is available to explain this phenomenon. Most literatures of Asia and Western countries are focused on long term migration only. However, big differences between past and present are 'increasing number of short term migration' and big impacts of short term migration on receiving country and sending country. Still, student migration is not considered fully since it is not long term migration, but Western countries start to pay attention to the student migrants as receiving countries. Also, it considers student migration policies between Asian countries instead of 'Asia to Western' through focusing on the student migration between two Asian countries, China and Korea.

Full paper download: Song Y_chinese student in Korea.pdf

This project targeted policies on poverty alleviation and educational equality. In Hong Kong, there are 150 new arrivals from China daily, about 9% of whom are children aged 0 to 4. The median domestic household income of new arrival families is well below that of the Hong Kong general population. To break the cycles of disadvantage, to tackle intergenerational poverty, to address educational inequality and to build up social capital, this project aimed to develop a culturally relevant, evidence-based primary preventive strategy to empower new immigrant parents to teach their preschool children learning skills, so they could take responsibility for their children's education. The programme was conducted in small group format, using modelling and role playing to ensure the parents' mastery of necessary child stimulation skills. A needs assessment was conducted to guide the development of the programme. The pilot version of the programme has been implemented and the participating parents reported positive changes in their children's behaviour, parent-child relationship, and learning. Programme design, implementation and process issues were discussed, in comparison to a similar programme being conducted in Australia. This project is a step towards evidence-based policy, emphasizing primary prevention through early intervention for young children and their parents.

The NIEs in East Asia are today undergoing institutional instabilities and changes under the pressure of democratization and globalization. They have faced different environment both domestically and internationally in comparison with the past high-growth period in which the strong developmental state played a dominant role in coordinating various institutions of production and welfare regimes.
Korea is no except to these changes. Perhaps the Korean political economy is today significantly changing more than any other neighbor East Asian countries. Since the post-financial crisis in Korea, globalization pressures and the power shift to the popular sector by the Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo-hyun governments in the democratization process, interacting with each other, are now critically affecting the power relations among various social groups and classes and reshaping the economy and social welfare now and into the future.
Although the previous two relatively progressive governments had attempted to search for new equilibriums for solving the current problems, the recent changes especially since the financial crisis in 1999 are apparently changing toward a liberal type of welfare capitalism as a result of the comprehensive neo-liberal reforms. Is that so? It seems that the Korean political economy is now very unstable by revealing some critical tensions among the institutions in the production and welfare regimes as well as the relevant politics, and thus falling in the process of a critical historical conjuncture in searching for a new paradigm of the welfare capitalism adapting to these changes.
How can we interpret Korea's current changes and responding strategies? How much have the past institutional legacies of the developmental state changed and created new paths for institutional change to the future? In other words, to what extent have the current changes revealed the path-dependent nature from the past institutional legacies and to what direction is the Korean welfare capitalism really moving?
The varieties of capitalism(VOC) approach has been getting attention as a useful analytical tool for explaining the existence of the different types of the political economies and their continuities and changes through time. Institutional complementarities and modes of coordination (or coordination mechanism) seem to be key concepts in the VOC perspective for explaining institutional continuities and changes in response to the endogenous as well as exogenous challenges.
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Based on these analytical tools, this paper tentatively attempts to identify what kind of institutional complementarities and modes of coordination have been formed between the core institutional domains in the production and welfare regimes in Korea and explaining why and how they are changing. By doing so, this paper aims at evaluating the usefulness as an analytical framework based on the VOC perspective and obtaining some theoretical and empirical implications in explaining the recent changes in the political economies in the East Asian context.

Full paper download: Chung M_production and welfare regimes in Korea.pdf