Liberalizing employment of foreign workers in Korea: Public perception and assessment

The Korean government recently and expediently proposed legislative change to greatly liberalize the employment of foreign workers, and the Korean congress also legislated the government proposal. As in the case of other law-making processes, civil perception and assessment of the potential social cost and benefit of such a change were important factors to be considered by administrators and politicians in deciding whether to adopt the new legislation on foreign workers. In order to assess the socially perceived cost and benefit of adopting legislation to liberalize the employment of foreign workers, this study employs the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), a method to assess the monetary value of non-market commodities and hence here to measure the value of the social effects of the liberalization. This assessment will provide insight into the development of policy on the liberalization of employment of foreign workers and help evaluate whether public support or resistance held sway over the Korean government's attitude in the law-making process on foreign labor. The empirical analysis shows that Korean citizens perceived that the introduction of foreign workers would have positive effects such as an improvement in the nation's image and a reduction in the psychological rejection of foreign workers, yet, they also perceived it would have negative effects such as an increase in demand for public order and administration to manage foreign workers and address associated social issues. Social costs were calculated as a monthly average of 9299 KW (Korean won) per household, but social benefits were calculated as 11,276 KW. If these values are applied to the nation's total number of households, the net social benefit resulting from the introduction of foreign workers is estimated at approximately 340 billion KW annually. Therefore, if foreign labor policy is appropriately improved, Korean citizen tend to presume that liberalizing the employment of foreign workers would generate net social benefits.