Policy responses to COVID-19 and discrimination against foreign nationals in South Korea/
Juheon Lee,Sarah Cho & Gowoon Jung
- 2021
The impact of Covid-19 have once again revealed the country's deep-seated xenophobia. This paper focuses on three government policies - mask rationing, universal disaster relief funds, and local government subsidies when supplies were insufficient and the economy was most severely affected. Government policies were based on nationality, which led to the exclusion of foreign nationals, even long-time taxpaying residents. Such institutional discrimination was blatant, which not only reflects South Korea's perceived boundaries of in-groups and out-groups, but also demonstrates the lack of a legal basis that prohibits discriminatory practices.