Abstract

In the 1990s, Italy and South Korea introduced a series of structural reforms of their respective pension systems. Although faced with similar challenges, such as external shocks and new domestic social demands, the two countries adopted very different reform strategies: Italy introduced reforms principally designed to contain public spending, whilst Korea extended the National Pension Scheme to almost the entire population, thus strengthening the social safety net. By exploring the political-economic logic behind these two divergent policy trajectories, this article aims to offer a critique of mainstream theories of the influence of globalisation on the welfare state, and to suggest an alternative analytic viewpoint of the factors underlying policy change in the pension field.