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Brief Reports

Report that suggests the national future strategies based on the analysis of major future issues by the research team
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47

[National Future Strategic Insight] Overcoming Disaster toward Innovation (No. 24)

Dr. Jeon Jun (Associate Research Fellow) has explored the concepts of disaster and innovation from a new perspective, and presented (1) a future with more disasters and inequality, (2) a future with less disasters, and (3) a future with higher social acceptance of disasters as plausible future scenarios. Dr. Jeon predicted that it is highly likely that Korea will face the dark sides of both scenarios (1) and (2). This is because our society is recognizing “disasters” only as the Acts of God or unpredictable large-scale accidents, and innovative strategies to respond to them also tend to be temporary. The scenario (3) is presented as a preferred example to show the direction we should be heading rather than the scenarios (1) and (2), although it still includes several risk factors. In such a scenario, social conflict is not a mere problem, but can be a useful tool by which various public opinions can be collected. He also proposed future innovations that can respond to social crisis and disasters in a broad sense, which are categorized into “democratic innovation” and “flexible innovation”. They aim at ensuring that individuals facing everyday disasters give their specific opinions for innovation, diversifying the subject of innovation, and enhancing social and organizational resilience in crisis situations. “If we understand only COVID-19 as a representative disaster, what we can see is limited to a huge and visible disaster. Actually, the ‘disasters’ encompass a historical and sociological phenomenon that comes slowly, is structurally formed, and is always present in our lives,” explains Dr. Jeon. “For addressing the disasters in a true sense, we need to seek democratic and flexible innovations in order to face the current status of our society and change it for the better,” he emphasized. * “National Future Strategic Insight” is a brief report which is issued every two weeks to provide strategic insights for our future based on in-depth analysis of major issues made by professional researchers at the National Assembly Futures Institute (NAFI).

P.I : Jeon Jun

Date : 2021-08-05

[Futures Brief] Emerging Issues and Global Trends (No. 1)

Park Seong-won, the Head of Innovative Growth Group, has introduced global emerging issues that might become great problems/opportunities: (1) anthropause, a global reduction in modern human activityl (2) social bubble, which refers to a having a small, clearly defined group; (3) zoom town, offline extension of the social bubble; (4) spatial computing, defined as human interaction with a machine in a 3D space around you; (5) splinternet; (6) bio-surveillance regime; (7) whole-genome synthesis; and (8) return of circular economy. Emerging issues mean issues (discoveries, events, or phenomenon) that have not been influential or important in the past but might be influential in the future. As pointed out by Park, the emerging issues analysis is intended to find potential social problems in advance and to make various efforts to address such problems without leading to major accidents. He also alleged that it is necessary to identify who and for what emerging issues are raised, and continuously monitor whether unintended negative consequences are caused by policy response and new conflicts arise, preventing a solution from becoming another challenge. In other words, Conventional studies on emerging issues have focused on discovering potentially influential issues, however nowadays it is required to specify intentions of those who make and spread with continuous monitoring. “This study covers the need for study on emerging issues, characteristics of issues sources, conventional researches, emerging issues being discussed recently, and policy responses for those issues,” explains Park. “We will try to discover issues that will ‘emerge’ due to social contradictions and conflicts in future research.”

P.I : Park Seong-won

Date : 2021-07-29

[National Future Strategic Insight] Literature Review to Derive Emerging Issues (No. 23)

Kim Yu-bean, the Director General of Research Support Office, has proposed an algorithm to derive issue candidates from a vast amount of literature data based on the definition of “emerging issues”, finding the literature with a pattern similar to such a definition. Emerging issues mean issues (discoveries, events, or phenomenon) that have not been influential or important in the past but might be influential in the future. In order to respond to future environmental changes, it is important to continuously identify emerging issues that are now negligibly influential but potentially turned into future or mega-trends, since the emerging issues are likely to become dominant in about 5-10 years and act as a driving force for social changes. Studies so far have mainly explored various issues through listening to opinions of experts, interviews, and brainstorming, but had limitations to discovery and evaluate issues from multiple perspectives due to expert bias and excessive amount of multidisciplinary information. In this study, Kim proposed a new methodology to search for issue candidates covering science, technology, humanities and society by using a vast amount of literatures, which is a literature-based algorithm to define entering issues and quickly derive candidates from literatures in consideration of novelty, fast-growth and impact, followed by selection of final issues through peer review on the candidates. Keywords from various perspectives were derived when applying the proposed algorithm to the digital transformation, including ICT-based technology, digital literacy, digital adaptation, and new opportunities. “We expect emerging issues analysis will be actively conducted if this algorithm is open online platform with the expanded function to enable general-purpose data input, contributing to enhancing our society’s future-proof capability,” explains Kim. * “National Future Strategic Insight” is a brief report which is issued every two weeks to provide strategic insights for our future based on in-depth analysis of major issues made by professional researchers at the National Assembly Futures Institute (NAFI).

P.I : Kim Yu-bean

Date : 2021-07-22

[National Future Strategic Insight] Addressing the Rapidly Growing Suicide Rate (No. 22)

Park Sang-hoon (Head of Governance Group) et al. have alleged that proactive government effects to decrease the suicide rate have not shown significant effectives although a variety of indicatives aimed at suicide prevention have implemented, commencing from 5-year comprehensive plan (I) led by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 2004, and it is because that the limitations in existing solutions focusing on suicide prevention and alleviation of suicidal risk. As they pointed out, it is wrong to understand the suicide only as a social maladjustment or to leave the bereaved family feeling guilty; reform of the existing administrative-limited approach is demanded. According to Park’s opinion, approach to risk factors at the individual level has its limitations – we should focus on “social suicide rate” rather than vulnerable individuals. Suicide rates are defined as a representative social indicators from which the degree of “society capability” can read, i.e. solidarity and community support. In other words, the stronger society capability is, the lower the suicide rate will be. The extremely high suicide rate cannot be solved by reducing risk of suicide attempts and providing healthcare for mental disorder, i.e. focusing on those individuals in need. What the Korean society really needs is strategies to prevent suicide assisted by comprehensive governmental supports addressing social challenges from poorly-funded social safety net to unfair labor market. What countries experiencing success in suicide prevention strategies have in common is that they have encourage socially approaching the suicide ideation considering their own resources and environment. Finland has introduced the psychological autopsy as a comprehensive psychological assessment tool based on its social security framework; Demark has established a welfare system diversified from multiple perspectives; and Japan has implemented a PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Adjust) cycle grounded on systematic efforts and policy interest of the administrative authorities. Actually, there were 28.6 (#7) per 100,000 population in Demark in 1985, but drastically declined to 9.4 (#26) in 2017. Rates of suicide spiked heavily in the late 1990s in Japan, but have been gradually declining for 10 consecutive years, falling to the lowest on record in 2019 (“2020 Counter-Suicide Whitepaper”, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (Japan)). Meanwhile, South Korea ranked #1 in 2017 with extremely high suicide rate of 23.0 deaths per 100,000, rapidly raising from 11.2 (#23) in 1985. “Although nowadays suicide is not viewed as a personal problem, but Korean society yet does not have sufficient social framework to support vulnerable groups and bereaved family suffering the most than anyone else,” explains Park. “We can suppress the suicide rate in the true sense only with a combination of proactive government intervention, social consensus, law revision, institutional reorganization, research, investigation, planning and practice.” * “National Future Strategic Insight” is a brief report which is issued every two weeks to provide strategic insights for our future based on in-depth analysis of major issues made by professional researchers at the National Assembly Futures Institute (NAFI).

P.I : Park Sang-hoon

Date : 2021-07-07

[National Future Strategic Insight] Detour to the Desirable Future (No. 21)

Park Seong-won, the Head of Innovative Growth Group, proposed a detour strategy that could lead to the people’s desirable future based on the multi-dimension investigation and analysis of the prolonged conflicts in the Korean society. Based on the future perception surveys conducted over the past three years, he has concluded that the Korean society is suffering from conflicts and confrontations in national and economic growth, environmental preservation, efficiency and equity. Korean society has emphasized growth, efficiency, meritocracy so far, but recently calls for new social vision raises for personal growth, environmental conservation, fairness and equity, which is expected increase further in the future. In his opinion, the long-term desirable future striking a balance among economy, environment and personal achievement can only be accomplishment by a “detour”, a person-centric alternative to abandoning the blind obsession with economic growth. Korea should aim at new dimension (society II) different from the existing society (society I) which was a combination of growthism and environmental damage; the detour will show us new perspectives and opportunities to reconstruct a goal our society wants to build up. “The proposed alternative can be understood as a detour and stopover toward the desirable further that our society should pursue over a long period,” explains Park. “Although it takes time, a gentle road could be a preferred alternative to a steep shortcut.” * “National Future Strategic Insight” is a brief report which is issued every two weeks to provide strategic insights for our future based on in-depth analysis of major issues made by professional researchers at the National Assembly Futures Institute (NAFI).

P.I : Park Seong-won

Date : 2021-06-24

[National Future Strategic Insight] Proposal of New National Development Model (No. 20)

Kim Hyeon-kon, the NAFI President, presented a new people-led development model centered on lifelong health, lifelong learning and lifelong employment, addressing the new paradigm shifts in the 21st century and socioeconomic challenges. As proposed by the President, this new model shall: (1) deal with the new paradigm shifts in the 21st century, such as AI revolution, longevity revolution and climate crisis; (2) contribute to solving the economic and social obstacles accumulated in the process of compressed growth, such as inequality, polarization, social conflict, educational bias and aging population, (3) ensure a people-led development that promotes and utilizes the freedom and autonomy of the general public, smarter than ever before supported by digital adoption and transformation. He emphasized that our country should ultimately purse a human-oriented community based on the freedom and autonomy of the people. “The national development model so far has a limitation in that it is focusing on the point of view of the state and the government only,” said President Kim. “This new model reflects the perspective of the people whom the state and government exist and will serve as a tool to promote public consensus, to direct to the national goal, and to judge the priority of national policies and strategies.” In this report, President Kim also assessed the importance, role and historical flow the national development model and newly proposed Korea’s future vision – “Country Where All People Dream and Achieve Their Dream, Country Where 50 Million Dreams Exist”. * “National Future Strategic Insight” is a brief report which is issued every two weeks to provide strategic insights for our future based on in-depth analysis of major issues made by professional researchers at the National Assembly Futures Institute (NAFI).

P.I : Kim Hyeon-kon

Date : 2021-06-10

[National Future Strategic Insight] Exploring Improvements in Framework for Early Childhood Care and Education Service (No. 19)

Dr. Lee Chae-jeong (Associate Research Fellow) reviewed the need for preventive response to the crisis of daycare centers and kindergartens arising from the continuing decline in the number of newborn babies upon discussion of alternatives. This study categorized the early childhood care and education (ECCE) services in the OECD members in terms of the government intervention in the social policy implementation process, and conducted analysis on whether the supply chain of ECCE services has been balanced with the distribution of infants and toddlers in 2019 and 2045 for each region. Referring to the analysis of the OECD member states, Dr. Lee concluded that Korea’s ECCE services is overly dependent on market only and should be improved; she also presented rearrangement of ECCE service providers in consideration of demographic changes with the demand-supply gap analysis, emphasizing that dissection on the mid- to long-term plans is required to achieve a supply-demand balance of the ECCE services considering the demographic change resulting from rapid aging of the population. “In Korea, a user selects the ECCE services in the private market and is compensated by the government,” said Dr. Lee. “It is necessary to improvement our market-overdependent system and to build up mid- to long-term plans for rearranging a framework itself to achieve a supply-demand balance in the light of the rapidly aging population.” * “National Future Strategic Insight” is a brief report which is issued every two weeks to provide strategic insights for our future based on in-depth analysis of major issues made by professional researchers at the National Assembly Futures Institute (NAFI).

P.I : Lee Chae-jeong

Date : 2021-05-27

[National Future Strategic Insight] Intuitional Approach to New Phase: Functioning National Assembly (No. 18)

Associate Research Fellow Cho In-yeong, as a principal investigator, has explained the current status and challenges of the National Assembly in terms of improvement of the legislative branch by cross-national comparative research and game theory approach, and suggested measures addressing such challenges on the recognition that one of the biggest cause would be incongruity of the current institutional arrangement. This brief presented four policy proposals that: (1) it is necessary to refrain from reinforcing or undermining the rights that the majority and minority respectively have in relation to the assembly proceedings at the same time; (2) it is necessary to avoid pursuing institutional reform as “Talking National Assembly” in which the only vote-winning majority takes the lead in the assembly proceeding; (3) it is necessary to institutionally balance between the majoritarian democracy and the consensus democracy to the extent of the political system for successful organizational and institutional reform into “Working National Assembly”; and (4) it is necessary to, if system reform to change the majority to the consensus is not available in the near future, it should be made at least to alleviate the conflict of values pursed by “Confronting National Assembly”. “Korean democracy is based upon majority rule rather the consensus decision-making, thus low effectiveness may be expected even if the systems are reorganized to build up ‘Working National Assembly’, because they do not correspond well to the majoritarian democracy,” explains Cho. “If the reform is ultimately aimed at ‘Working National Assembly, we need to consider fundamental and complement institutional arrangement, instead of institutional reform resulting in conflicts.” On the other hand, this study also paid attention on the inefficiency and low trust of the Korean National Assembly focusing on conflict between effectiveness and representativeness of the political system. The researcher’s analysis resulted that that the Korean National Assembly displays an outlier in the context of comparison with the OECD members. * “National Future Strategic Insight” is a brief report which is issued every two weeks to provide strategic insights for our future based on in-depth analysis of major issues made by professional researchers at the National Assembly Futures Institute (NAFI).

P.I : Cho In-yeong

Date : 2021-05-13

[National Future Strategic Insight] Need for Happiness Report and National Happiness (No. 17) (Revised)

Associate Research Fellow Heo Jong-ho has confirmed the inequality of happiness depending on region, age and socioeconomic position based on “2020 Korean Happiness Survey” and emphasized the need for in-depth research and policy proposals. In particular, he conducted “Korean Happiness Survey” in November 2020 with about 14,000 males and females aged ≥ 15 nationwide as respondents; it asked respondents to think of overall happiness score, meaning of life, accomplishment, freedom to make decisions in life, a position they feel they stand at the present time on the Cantril ladder, and satisfaction 5 years ago and after. The outcomes show that average overall happiness score is above 5 despite of the COVID-19 pandemic; however the vulnerable groups, such as elderly population (aged 60 and over), single-person households, groups with low education and income levels, and groups with poor health, demonstrate much lower scores than average, thus it can be concluded the inequality is the critical factor to happiness. Further, the most notable variation is observed across regions instead of gender or socioeconomic indicators; Jeonbuk, Jeonnam, Gwangju, and Gyeongnam regions show a higher degree of happiness, but Gyeongbuk and Jeju have the lowest scores for all matrices. Heo suggested to establish polices based on the peoples’ rating of their own lives in order to improve the quality of life and gross national happiness; especially, South Korea needs to institutional approaches to ensure significance improvement in well-being of vulnerable groups, including elderly, single-person households, low-income groups, local residents living in Gyeongbuk and Jeju regions. “Studies have been reported that higher level of happiness can contribute to build up more prosperous and robust society,” explains Heo. “It is necessary to accumulate basic data serving as a foundation for establishing mid- and long-term policies with continuous monitoring of national happiness and inequality from the viewpoint of the National Assembly, thus we will provide the detailed takeaways in terms of policy through in-depth researches.” * “National Future Strategic Insight” is a brief report which is issued every two weeks to provide strategic insights for our future based on in-depth analysis of major issues made by professional researchers at the National Assembly Futures Institute (NAFI).

P.I : Heo Jong-ho

Date : 2021-04-29

[National Future Strategic Insight] Proposal of Reform Agendas to Explore National Long-Term Development Strategy (No. 16)

Research Fellow Lee Sun-hwa has presented the reform agendas for the national long-term development strategy: (1) demand-oriented integrated development strategy, (2) redefined role of the bureaucracy, (3) framework for decentralized decision-making and policy communication, and (4) strengthen decision-making function of the National Assembly. For the “demand-oriented integrated development strategy”, agendas suggested by Lee include coordination of policy ownership and inter-ministry cooperative system, emphasizing the role of control tower across all ministries. For the “redefined role of the bureaucracy”, she divided the bureaucracy system into recruitment and promotion and suggested innovative solutions for each section, including reformation of public service examinations and employments, recruitment of talents from the private sector in the civil service, and performance- or competency-oriented promotion framework. For the “framework for decentralized decision-making and policy communication”, her suggestion include a decentralized local governance framework and a strengthened local service supply chain, separated from a central-leading model, in various sectors such as housing, local communities, healthcare, employment, and labor-management relations, on the premise that administrative districts should be reorganized to establish new regions encompassing local hub cities and satellite towns for increasing the effectiveness of the decentralization. For the “strengthen decision-making function of the National Assembly”, she derived the reform agendas including the National Assembly’s institutionalized role in resolving social conflicts and a cooperative framework of the National Assembly and the financial authorities for sustainable finance. This report was prepared based on the NAFI’s “National Long-Term Development Strategy Research Series” for seeking a comprehensive solution from the viewpoint of the national operation system to the political, economic, social and structural obstacles challenged by South Korea. “The ultimate goal of the national long-term development strategy is to present a national vision and reform agendas to overcome the drawbacks of the existing system,” explains Lee. “The most promising approach to derive effective strategies is to explore the pros and cons of the compressed growth of South Korea by sectors that make up the national system, such as governance, quality of life, growth engines and labor system.” * “National Future Strategic Insight” is a brief report which is issued every two weeks to provide strategic insights for our future based on in-depth analysis of major issues made by professional researchers at the National Assembly Futures Institute (NAFI).

P.I : Lee Sun-hwa

Date : 2021-04-14