A Study of Factors Affecting Policy Acceptance of Child care Policy- Focusing on Free Child care Policies for 0-5-Year Old Children-

Abstract

Since 2011, the welfare policy of the state has been much discussed concerning the enactment of the 'Free Meal Policy'. Politicians have put importance on welfare policies, including child care issues. As Korean family structure has been changed over the years and societal and economic changes have increased women's participation in the job market, issues of child care and education are being recognized as a national and societal problems, and not just a domestic or personal matter. Accordingly, a variety of policies to support the latest parenting has steadily brought forth. Parenting support policies for child rearing has received attention from the perspective of future human resources development, and also from the perspective of policies responding to low birthrates and for establishing equality between family members, especially women who are engaged in economic activities. However, the general public, including the very parents who have 0-5-year old children are calling for a change in the current policy, because the free child care policy imposes too much of a financial burden. Focused on this current problem, this study aims to analyze the factors that influence acceptance of the policy by the policys target group, who is affected by the governments making decisions on certain societal issues. Research questions of this study are as follows. Regarding implementation of free child care policy for 0-5 year old children, this study aims to what factors affecting policy acceptance of (1) parents group, direct beneficiaries at this time and (2) unmarried men and women, future beneficiaries of the policy and tax-payer at this time. On the basis of previous researches, this study examines the factors affecting policy acceptance and classifies into four categories : policy contents and policy enforcement organization, policy target groups' value and experience and policy environment factors. Factors corresponding to each category are written in questionnaires and asked to citizens living in Seoul capital city. To analyze factors affecting policy acceptance on the free child care policy for 0-5 year children, this paper conducts correlation analysis, regression analysis, principal component analysis and frequency analysis. With the result of analyzing collected data, it can be concluded that the surveyed group's pros and cons are almost the same to each other. When policy acceptance of parents group and unmarried group analyzed together, it is revealed that policy contents factors and policy environment factors have significant positive relation on policy acceptance. Factors that affect on the policy acceptance mostly is policy contents and environment factors. Accordingly, in oder to ensure policy acceptance on free childcare policy in a process of implementation, it is necessary to secure to inform in detail the effects and advantages of the policy contents and to create active activities of political parties and media report on the policy. There are several limits of this research. First, this paper only surveys the citizen who are living in Seoul capital city, so the result of this paper cannot wholly represent nationwide. Second, this study is only conducting quantitative study. Therefore, future studies will also be conducted through qualitative research methods such as interviews.