Housing Crises and Policy Transformations in South Korea

South Korea has witnessed remarkable economic development since the 1960s. Its economic growth rate has few parallels. However, behind this facade of growth and progress, a chronic housing shortage in the capital region, declining owner-occupation, rising housing costs, and polarisation in housing conditions between the better-off and the worse-off clearly illustrate the increasing impasse and crisis in housing that Korea has faced. The Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and the more recent global financial crisis shocked the Korean housing market. Immediately after each crisis, the housing market experienced a serious recession and a sharp drop in prices. This paper addresses the seriousness of the impact of the financial crises on Korean housing conditions and how the Korean government reacted to the housing crises. It also discusses the benchmarks over the years and how pressing exigencies in the last decade have led to dramatic transformations in housing policy.Housing crisis, financial crisis, policy transformation, South Korea,

Housing policy socialization and de-commodification in South Korea

South Korea has undergone significant housing system transformations in recent decades involving radical expansions in state housing provision. Growth in social forms of public housing ostensibly contradicts the neoliberal trend toward the privatization of social housing sectors elsewhere in the developed world. This paper examines the nature, features and context of housing policy socialization in South Korea in terms of political and socioeconomic transformations. It addresses why extensions of public rental housing have been developed in different periods and how their role has changed over time. A particular concern is why the ostensible de-commodification or socialization of housing policy has been recently pursued alongside neo-liberalization in other domains and as housing shortage has eased. Important factors have been the legacies of developmentalist strategies that have prioritized economic growth over welfare conditions and increasing political contestation where inequalities in social and housing conditions have come to the fore