Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Since 1962, the South Korean government has administered the settlement support program targeting North Korean (NK) refugees who came from North Korea to South Korea. This program provides temporary cash transfer and in-kind benefits to give a grace period for NK refuges. This settlement support program hae changed to pro-work caused by the abrupt increase of the entry number of NK refugees since the mid-1990s and a high rate of welfare receipt of NK refugees: by mid-2000s over 60 percentages of NK refugees has remained in a public assistance program for low-income families in South Korea. Currently, over 30,305 NK refugees are living in South Korea, and a participation rate of a primary public assistance program has decreased to 24.4%. However, it is still 7.6 times higher than that of nationwide, 3.2% as of June 2017 (Ministry of Unification, 2017).

This study evaluates effects of 1) the 2006 reform of settlement support programs for NK refugees on their economic and behavioral outcomes -- earned income, cash transfer, employed duration, and security level of employment -- and how the effects differ by working ability. 304 NK refugee samples from 2010 National Survey of DomesticViolence in SK data and 156 NK female refugee samples from 2012 Customized Support Plan for Victimized NK Female Refugees data, funded by the Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, will be analyzed.To examine the 2006 reform effect, samples in those datasets were divided by the 2002 to 2005 entry group and the 2006 to 2009 entry group, and regression analysis was performed. To compare the effects by working ability, samples in those datasets were classified into a group whose employment is relatively harder (i.e., seniors and females with children), and the other group whose employment is relatively easier, and the multi-group analysis was carried out.

Preliminary results show that the 2006 settlement support program reform increases the earned income, decreases cash transfers from government, increased job duration, and decreased employment security level. However, in the group whose employment is harder, the 2006 reform did not increase the earned income nor job duration while it decreases cash transfers from government and employment security level. These results suggest that 2006 settlement support programs reform may increase outcomes related to self-help but decrease the government support and that a group who can be employed harder gets disadvantages from the pro-work reform and careful consideration for involuntarily unemployed NK refugees is required.