Do the Pandemic and the First‐Ever Universal Benefit Change Welfare Attitudes? Lessons From South Korea

ABSTRACT The significant development of Korea's welfare system since the 2000s has, in turn, intensified debates on fiscal sustainability, and welfare policy has always been a key agenda in political elections. This study defines welfare attitudes as the willingness to pay a higher tax burden for welfare services. It conducted a linear regression using the additional survey of the Korea Welfare Panel Study. The result indicates that welfare attitudes remained at 3.841 out of 7 points in 2019 to 3.837 in 2022. In terms of the determinants, welfare attitude gaps among birth‐cohorts significantly increased after the pandemic, implying that younger cohorts are more reluctant to accept the tax burden. Trust in government and tax fairness also has more effects on welfare attitudes. However, economic status and political orientation record smaller effects on welfare attitudes. Regions with higher confirmed cases showed a significant negative effect on welfare attitudes, whereas COVID‐19‐related reliefs had no statistically significant effect. Moreover, it employed ordered logistic regression as a robustness check, and the results are highly consistent. Lastly, policymakers need to propose a fundamental fiscal reform plan to mitigate tensions among cohorts on the welfare burden and muster more citizens' trust.