한국의 중간층은 어떤 복지국가를 원하는가? 중간층의 복지태도와 복지국가 전망에의 함의

A welfare state can be well-developed when it meets the majority of the citizens' needs and enjoy wide support. In this sense, the welfare attitude of the middle class is crucial for the development of a welfare state, considering its weight in income strata, and its importance in the formation of public opinion. However, in Korea, there have hardly been serious researches on the welfare attitude of middle class, a main beneficiary and simultaneously a major tax-payer in modern welfare state. This paper explores what the characteristics of the welfare attitude of Korean middle class are, using the second (2007) and the seventh wave (2012) of Korea Welfare Panel Surveys. The paper also examines how the welfare attitude changed during the period of 2007-2013 when political elites increasingly articulated the politics of welfare in the context of rapidly rising economic inequality. The foci of comparison of the 2007 and 2013 survey are the attitudes toward i) government intervention in reducing the income inequality, ii) tax-raising to expand social welfare, and iii) extension of nine main welfare areas. We also summarize the implications of middle class' welfare attitude for policy-making and the prospect for the welfare state in Korea.