Field Officials Overburdened in 'Crisis Household Detection' to Prevent Welfare Blind Spots: "Inefficient System Needs Improvement"

Number of Vulnerable Households Exceeds 1 Million for 3 Consecutive Years
'Visiting Welfare Teams' Handle 95 Households per Person
Difficulties in Meeting Due to Concurrent Existing Duties
"Need for Close-Knit Public-Private Cooperation in Local Discovery"

At 10:40 a.m. on the 12th, Lee Ji-eun, an administrative officer of the Welfare Team in Haengun-dong, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, and Jeong Chi-hwa, an administrative officer of the Welfare Policy Division at Gwanak-gu Office, set out from the community center to visit an elderly woman in her 80s, Kim, who was a target of crisis support. Kim, a basic livelihood security recipient, needed to undergo pancreatic cancer surgery but was unable to afford the hospital fees. However, she received emergency medical expense support through the discovery of crisis households in Gwanak-gu last January, underwent surgery, and was discharged. On that day, the counseling session lasted over 30 minutes as Kim talked about her life after discharge and the officers reviewed her treatment and living conditions.

On the morning of the 12th, Jung Hwa Jeong, an official from Gwanak-gu Office, and Ji Eun Lee, an official from Haengun-dong Resident Center, visited the home of a household subject to crisis investigation to provide counseling. Photo by Seoyul Hwang chestnut@

Like these two, public officials in the “Visiting Health and Welfare Teams” of city and provincial local governments, who are responsible for discovering crisis households, play an important role in reducing welfare blind spots. However, these officials point out limitations such as system constraints, manpower shortages, and the burden of handling other tasks, which prevent them from providing sufficient services to crisis households.

According to data received from the Ministry of Health and Welfare on the 13th, the number of crisis household investigation targets per dedicated public official in visiting health and welfare teams of basic local governments nationwide was 95.3 last year. The “Visiting Welfare Teams” are composed of 4 to 8 members per neighborhood and are responsible for discovering crisis households and providing welfare support services. The Ministry of Health and Welfare analyzes crisis variables such as power and water disconnections, health insurance premium arrears, financial delinquencies, and communication fee arrears six times a year to identify crisis household investigation targets. When this data and data discovered by local governments are passed on to the eup/myeon/dong community centers, the visiting health and welfare teams contact the crisis households through field visits, mail, and phone calls.

The number of domestic crisis household targets, which was 633,100 in 2019, rose to 1,098,100 in 2020, then to 1,339,900 in 2021, and 1,208,000 last year, continuously exceeding one million. This year, it recorded 685,300 up to June, and it is expected to be around 1.3 million by the end of the year once the investigation is completed. However, the number of responsible personnel still cannot keep up with the increase in crisis households. The average number of targets per person nationwide was 66.3 in 2019, but rose to 94.1 in 2020 and 113.4 in 2021. The situation is more severe in local areas. In Jeju, one person must handle 218.1 targets, in Ulsan 192.9, in Daejeon 151.3, in Daegu 150.0, and in Sejong 121.8.

Along with the increase in the population per person in charge, there are also limitations due to handling other tasks simultaneously. A public official in Seoul said, “I have to investigate 100 households within a month or two, but the burden of other concurrent tasks makes it difficult to conduct thorough investigations,” adding, “Many crisis household residents are day laborers who are away from home for long periods, so it is common not to meet them during working hours.” Officer Jeong said, “Many low-income multi-family houses where crisis households live only have street numbers without individual unit numbers, making them hard to find,” and added, “Posting notices is an alternative, but many people do not want to expose themselves as targets, so there are many difficulties.”

Experts suggest that the field welfare administration, which exposes such limitations, should be supplemented by systemic expansion. Jeong Soon-dul, a professor in the Department of Social Welfare at Ewha Womans University, said, “It takes about two months for data related to crisis household discovery to be released, so it is difficult to capture real-time responses from the field,” and added, “It is worth considering cooperation between local community welfare centers and local governments.”

Seok Jae-eun, a professor in the Department of Social Welfare at Hallym University, said, “Signs of crisis households are often known by tenants or neighbors,” and added, “It is desirable to strengthen the process by conducting crisis household discovery in a community-based manner and using big data for investigating discovered targets.” Gwanak-gu Office finds crisis household targets through the Shintongbangtong Welfare Platform linked with the Real Estate Agents Association and the Hope Discovery Group composed of residents. Since April, this platform has incorporated about 20 households into welfare systems. Lee Bong-ju, a professor in the Department of Social Welfare at Seoul National University, said, “In the overall public official organizational restructuring process, increasing the number of dedicated social welfare field officials and significantly reducing the number of targets per person is necessary to achieve practical effects.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.