A disaster that filled the streets, and a leave that few take

Before the earthquake volunteering in Japan was mainly the work of middle-aged housewives in their communities. In January 1995 the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake took more than 6,000 lives and destroyed the port of Kobe. Over the next ten months, about 1.34 million volunteers helped with the recovery. In 1998 the Diet passed a non-profit bill unanimously, and the number of legal non-profits later rose past 10,000. After the 2011 earthquake in eastern Japan, 67 percent of people are described as saying their awareness of volunteering had risen, and 83 percent as willing to take part.

Company practice is given in smaller, later numbers, and they stay as this report writes them. In 2013, only 2.8 percent of firms had introduced special volunteer leave. Among companies with 1,000 or more staff, about 23 percent had done so, recognizing on average more than fifty days, and 73 percent of those firms paid a full salary during the leave. A 2014 survey of 383 companies that had introduced the system found an average of only 26 users per company. The leave exists. The take-up, in this telling, is thin.

A nationwide movement, and a dependence the author cannot cheer

In Korea, volunteering is described as having grown into a year-round national movement. The potential population of volunteers, and the number actually active, rose sharply in just a few years. Social welfare accounts for more than half of the activity, with education and the environment next; culture, arts, and sports volunteering is lively around neighbourhood centres. Universities have a credit system for social service, middle and high schools have institutionalized it, and cities and counties have opened volunteer centers. After the 1997 financial crisis, a public-work scheme used unemployed people as paid volunteers. Companies have institutionalized employee volunteering and encouraged club-based service. A later count in the account puts volunteers at more than 11 million and activity hours at more than 84 million, with support from a basic volunteering law, volunteer centers, the 1365 portal, and an integrated insurance scheme. Center-operation figures for 2011 through 2015 show a total around 245 or 246, with direct government operation falling from 58.9 percent to 53.9 percent, and contracted or corporate operation rising.

The worry sits beside that growth. Dependence on government support is called a serious weakness of Korean volunteer groups. Central councils rely on that support more than on membership fees, and have not managed to keep an autonomous civil society independent of the state and the market. An activity that ought to rest on civic autonomy has been organized under government lead. The remedies are three, and they are kept as the author names them: reflection, so that empathy, solidarity, communication, and the purity of service are not lost; a realignment that builds a capacity to solve social problems and a way of measuring social change; and a new start in which citizens lead and the government stands behind. The Japanese leave-days and the Korean center percentages stay dated. A later survey belongs in a later paper.

Sources

1. A study guide comparing volunteering in Korea and Japan, including figures for the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji earthquake, Japan's 1998 non-profit law, corporate volunteer leave in 2013–2014, and Korean volunteer-center operations from 2011 to 2015,.

Last updated: 14 November 2026