사회서비스 선택권과 접근성에 관한 연구

Abstract

This study began with the critical mind that in social services that have been expanded in market mechanisms, accessibility is neglected due to the emphasis of choices. Although the policy mechanism termed choices is important in universal social services, to achieve equity, which is one of the goals that must be achieved by social service policies, accessibility must be secured. Furthermore, social services should be designed to respond flexibly to users' needs. To this end, social service policies should be design to fit the regions of users. However, current social services emphasize only the autonomy of choices without considering regional characteristics. In the case of social services that are mainly provided to the elderly, the disabled, and children, realizing equity by ensuring accessibility is more important than anything else and service imbalance should not occur as a regional characteristic. Therefore, this study was intended to grasp how the effects of choices of and accessibility to social services on satisfaction are different from each other and how such differences appear by region. To deal with an empirical study, among social services, child care services for which choices and accessibility are regarded important and in particular, differences in users by region may be prominent, were selected. That is, while grasping the effects of choices and accessibility on satisfaction with care services used, differences in these influencing factors by region will be analyzed in order to seek the direction of design of policies for social services including child care service. To this end, online questionnaire surveys were conducted with a total of 567 respondents comprising 244 residing in big cities centering on metropolitan cities, 248 in small and medium cities, which are city regions in provinces, and 75 in rural areas, which are gun regions in provinces, were selected. The results of analysis of the questionnaire surveys are as follows. First, the effects of choices and accessibility including the entire sub factors on satisfaction were analyzed and the results indicated that accessibility had larger effects on satisfaction. This means that service users are satisfied more when their accessibility is guaranteed than when they selected appropriate services. That is, it can be seen that accessibility is a decisive factor in service use. Second, the effects of sub factors of choice and accessibility on satisfaction were analyzed and the results indicated that sub factors of accessibility had larger effects on satisfaction in big cities. Specifically, physical accessibility, service hour accessibility, acceptance accessibility, and cost accessibility were shown to have effects on satisfaction. In small and medium-sized cities, sub factors of choices had larger effects on satisfaction and the sub factors affecting satisfaction were choices of providers, programs, and service hours. Finally, in rural areas, only the choice of providers had effects on satisfaction and unlike other regions, whether both of husband and wife work for living among general characteristics had quite significant effects on satisfaction. That is, the sub factors of choices and accessibility that affect satisfaction were different by region and their effects were different from each other. Therefore, service policies should be designed differently by region. Meanwhile, the choice of providers was shown to have effects on satisfaction regardless of regions even when accessibility was considered. Therefore, it can be seen that enabling service users to select service providers is a very important element not only for the realization of the rights of users but also for enhancement of satisfaction. Based on the above study findings, theoretical and policy implications were suggested. As for the theoretical implications, the importance of accessibility was emphasized in the area of social services where only choices have been emphasized, and theoretical knowledge was expanded through multilateral analysis of accessibility. In addition, the directions of design of choices and accessibility by region that have been discussed only theoretically were presented through an empirical study. As for the policy implications, it was suggested that to actually improve social service users' satisfaction, policies should be designed differently and multilaterally by region. Accessibility should be guaranteed further in big cities and choices should be guaranteed further in small and medium cities. In rural areas, along with the guarantee of choices, child care systems should be restructured so that the service can be received regardless of whether both the husband and wife work for living or not. In addition, since the effects of sub factors of choices and accessibility on satisfaction were shown to be different by region, this study suggested that the policies should be designed to fit regional circumstances. This study is meaningful in that it discussed accessibility, which had been somewhat overlooked in social services, together with choices thereby arousing social interest, that it empirically analyzed choices and accessibility that had been mainly discussed only theoretically, and that it revealed the fact that the effects of the choices and accessibility of social services on satisfaction with service use are different by region.