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(Förster & Tóth, 2000). Their reformed social policies are
characterized by high take-up rates of social security but limited
benefit levels, removal of subsidies on most goods and services, and
increasing privatization of health, social care and education
(Aidukaite, 2009; Deacon, 2000). At the same time, post-socialist
countries are quite diverse in terms of their social policies. Poland,
Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia have
undertaken most social-policy reform (Deacon, 2000).
Although youth unemployment has soared since 1989,
school-leavers are not entitled to insurance-based unemployment
benefits (Vodopivec
,
Wörgötter, & Raju, 2005). The average
replacement rates of unemployment benefits are lower than in
Nordic and Western European countries (OECD, 2015). Besides,
expenditures and resources allocated to active labor market
programs are quite limited (Kuddo, 2009).
Even though Esping-Andersen (1999) considered Taiwan,
Japan, and South Korea to be conservative regimes, others
(Holiday & Wilding, 2003; White & Goodman, 1998) have noted
that East Asian welfare systems are characterized by low social
expenditures, dependents’ reliance on the family, and productivist
welfare policies developed for economic growth and political
support. As opposed to social spending accounting for 23% to
32% of GDP in social democratic and conservative countries, in
2009-2010, total public social spending amounted to 10% of GDP
in Taiwan, 9% in South Korea, and 22% in Japan (Lue et al., 2014;
OECD, 2016). Initially, the Japanese, South Korean, and
Taiwanese welfare states targeted soldiers, veterans, and
government employees (Tang, 2000). After accelerating
democratization during the 1980s and 1990s, and weathering the
financial crisis between 1998 and the early 2000s, these
governments added occupational categories and disadvantaged
groups to social welfare programs. Nevertheless, the social
insurance-based welfare systems protect labor market insiders.
School-leavers, non-working individuals, and precarious workers