Forgotten Concepts of Korea’s Welfare State: Productivist Welfare Capitalism and Confucianism Revisited in Family Policy Change

Abstract Understanding the dominant principle(s) of a welfare regime has been the “higher-level” objective of welfare state analysis. East Asian welfare states are no exception, and thus many contributions have sought to understand the welfare state order of these countries. In this article, we consider the development and current architecture of family policies at the center of welfare regime debate for the case of South Korea. Through this analysis we aim to critically assess current assumptions that both original foundations—productivist welfare capitalism and Confucianism—are theoretically useless for understanding the current welfare state and its development. Instead, this article argues that productivism remains at the heart of family policy in South Korea. The repositioning of productivism, however, and the related focus on social reproduction in the welfare state project, have led to most of the changes introduced to the detriment of Confucianism.