Introduction -- The roles of the state in the economy and social welfare -- A theoretical framework for analysing the process of policy formation and change -- Social and economic policies during the export-led industrialisation of the 1960s -- Social and economic policies during the heavy and chemical industrialisation in the 1970s -- Stabilisation, liberalisation and social policies : 1980-1992 -- Social and economic policies under globalisation : 1993-1997 -- Financial crisis, economic policy, and social policy : 1998-present -- Conclusions -- Epilogue : assessment of the existing social security system in Korea.