지방자치단체별 육아지원 실태와 효과 분석

Abstract

In terms of the reality of policies concerning child-rearing support in Korea, the role of local governments has not received great attention, but the magnification of the role of local governments has gradually increased as policies are planned and executed. This research aims to examine the detailed projects implemented by the local governments of 16 cities and provinces that have differentiated support for child-rearing, and the effective implementation of such projects, as well as the levels of meeting the needs of local consumers. The major results of the research are presented as follows: First, as a result of analyzing the operation of budget and the current status of projects in each municipality, it was found that the rate of child-rearing support budget between the central government and the local governments is between 1 to 1.4 in 2008, which shows that local governments have the greater financial burden. As the budget for early childhood education has been transferred to local governments in 2008, 99.9% of the budget comes from local governments. As for the current status of projects, in addition to the basic financial support coming from the national subvention, childcare fees, labor costs, environment improvement expenses, functional enhancement costs are provided to childcare projects, and training for professionals and infrastructure building operations are implemented as special projects of local governments. District education offices support various educational expenses for early childhood education, allowances for head teachers, and labor costs related to full day/extended programs and some of them develop and distribute specialized educational materials, educate professionals, and operate scholarship programs. Second, through a comparative analysis of the investment per child at a kindergarten or childcare facility, monthly childcare expenses per child were 935,075 won on average for a child at a labor cost-supported center and 738,672 won for a child at a teacher labor cost non-supported center. The monthly support for a child at a public kindergarten is 376,195 won on average, while that for a child at a private kindergarten is 9,643 won on average. Third, as a result of analyzing the relative efficiency of childcare policies of the 16 local governments, 8 local governments have turned out to be effective, and the other 8 local governments recorded 67.0% to 99.9% in efficiency. As a result of analyzing the efficiency of early child education policies of 16 district education offices, 11 district education offices were found to be effective, and the other 5 district education offices recorded 63.9% to 71.3% in efficiency. Fourth, as a result of analyzing the satisfaction of 1,863 consumers in relation to the child-rearing support policies, it has been found that the highest field in satisfaction was in terms of the evaluation certification for childcare facilities and kindergarten scholarship programs. In addition, parents of children at childcare facilities and kindergartens showed relatively higher satisfaction with financial support, specialization in the childcare/education curriculum, supervision and region-specific policies than the heads of childcare facilities and kindergartens.