Social Investment Policies in Canada, Australia, Japan, and South Korea

This paper compares the social investment policy reforms that have been introduced by the two Anglo-Saxon liberal welfare regimes of Canada and Australia and the two East Asian welfare regimes of Japan and South Korea since the 1990s. The paper examines the causes of these social policy changes, and asks why these seemingly different contexts produce such similar policy idea. While all four countries share similar broad ideational template and language of social investment, they differ in terms of their target groups and policy instruments. Whereas Canada and Australia have focused their social investment policies on children through ECEC (what I call an “invest in the future” model); Japan and South Korea have approached social investment from a more general human capital and economic activation perspective (what I call a “human capital activation” model). As a result, social investment policies in these countries have targeted more broadly on children, women, and the elderly. I argue that these differences in social investment approaches stem from the differences in their social, political and economic contexts, and the political economic legacies.