A Study on the factors that determine public attitudes toward ODA in Korea

Abstract

Korea takes a unique stance in terms of its shift from an aid recipient to a donor country. Further, the Korean government is about to increase the ODA amount up to 0.20% of GNI by 2020. This paper aims to investigate how the individual characteristics and the attitude toward ODA are correlated, and examine the factors that determine the public attitude toward ODA while focusing on the individual’s civic consciousness. This study identifies the determinants by analyzing the data from 2011 Korea General Social Surveyusing logit model analysis. As a result, it reveals that the characteristics of altruism, awareness of human rights, and opinion on North Korea are the key determinants of the attitude toward foreign aid. Also, this study confirms the significance of responsible citizenship, political inclination, subjective happiness, gender, and number of children variables. However, this study cannot find the influence of education, income, occupation, and age, contrary to the existing empirical research results.