Reforming the dualities: The politics of labor market reform in contemporary East Asia

What are the characteristics of East Asia's labor market systems, and how have they changed? This dissertation claims that postwar Japan, South Korea and Taiwan maintained "labor market dualities": substantial gaps in access to employment protection and welfare provisions between regular workers and other workers. Since the late 1990s, however, East Asia's practices of labor market dualities have come under tremendous pressures, including the end of rapid growth, the introduction of US-style liberal capitalism, and changing institutional environments.;This dissertation reveals that East Asian countries have selected different paths of labor market reform during the past decade. Japan has reinforced its labor market duality by strengthening employment protection for regular workers and rationalizing welfare programs. South Korea has undertaken a systemic change of its duality by weakening employment security for regular workers and universalizing the coverage of welfare programs. Taiwan has taken a preservation path, placing priority on stabilizing most workers' incomes while maintaining employment security of public-sector workers.;This dissertation highlights two variables to explain national differences in labor market reform: a regime's reform orientation and the dominant policymaking mode. With their transformational orientation, both Korean and Taiwanese regimes have committed to challenge their labor market dualities through more liberalization measures against regular workers and more welfare benefits for marginal workers. However, the feasibility of realizing such orientation was different between the two countries. In Korea, the statist policymaking pattern has supported the government's commitment to the transformational goals. Meanwhile, the Taiwanese government could not accomplish all of its goals. Unions have mobilized their clientelist ties to persuade the government to protect public-sector workers. Finally, Japan's reinforcement resulted from the confluence of its pragmatic regime orientation and the corporatist policymaking mode. National-level union has persuaded its pragmatic government and business group to preserve employment security for regular workers. In exchange, the government could alleviate the continuing rigidity in labor markets by increasing non-regular employment and reducing welfare benefits.;This dissertation also assesses the socioeconomic effects of the new labor market policies and discusses if the countries have combined market efficiency with social stability successfully.