‘다문화가족’이라는 정책대상: 실질적 평등 실현을 위한 정책설계에 관하여

The term ‘multicultural family’, which was incorporated in the law by the enactment of the Multicultural Family Support Act in 2008, has been criticized for its use in a derogatory manner. As a policy target, ‘multicultural families’ draws special attention because of the fact that, while it is a word created by using the term ‘multicultural’ derived from multiculturalism, it has revealed the contradictory social effect of being used in a discriminatory manner. From the perspective of equality policy, this article focuses on the limitations of policy design that have caused such contradictory effect by looking into the legislative debates that were led up to the enactment of the Multicultural Family Support Act. In realizing substantive equality, positive (special) measures may be required to remedy the disadvantages of certain groups. Such measures meanwhile have the potential to stigmatize groups by specifying the target populations. It thus may seem that the prejudice and stereotypes attached to a policy target is inevitable. This article, however, argues it is rather a result of defect in policy design than an unavoidable effect of positive measures. While policy targets may be shaped by existing social prejudices, policy design itself has a force of social construction that creates a new meaning for the target populations. In the case of the Multicultural Family Support Act, it was enacted with the intention of resolving racial discrimination that existed historically and socially, and, in the light of the purpose and contents of the legislation, it can be appropriately defined as a special measure to achieve substantive equality for people in migration situations. It has, however, contradicted its own intent by positing it as part of family policy to sustain traditional form of family and thus allowing the eligibility only to the family members of Korean nationals. This resulted in discrimination against migrants as well as Koreans included in the policy target, and migrants excluded from the target. Therefore, this article argues that policy design needs to be reformed to allow eligibility to all migrants on an individual basis.