National health insurance was introduced in South Korea in 1977.[2] By 1989 South Korea had universal health coverage.[2] Other social insurance programmes in South Korea include the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance (IACI, South Korea's first social insurance program dating to 1964), Employment Insurance (EI, dating to 1995).[2]
The recent trend in South Korea is to increase welfare spending: between 1990 and 2007 South Korean government expenditure on welfare increased at an 11% annual rate in real terms, which was the fastest rate of increase in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) area.[1][2] Social expenditure in the years 1990–2001 rose from 4.25% to 8.7% (with a peak at 10.9% in 1998).[3][2]