Visiting Scholar
YCAR Visiting Scholar; Professor
School of Social Welfare at Chung-Ang University
Research Keywords:
Welfare states and labour markets; precarious employment; labour market policies; institutionalism
Research Region(s):
South Korea
Professor Sophia Seung yoon Lee is a professor in the School of Social Welfare at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, Korea. She earned her PhD in Social Policy from the University of Oxford with a comparative study on East Asian welfare production regimes and non-regular workers. Her doctoral dissertation was recognized with the University of Oxford Barnett Research Award and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) Outstanding Dissertation Award.
Professor Lee previously served as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Kyoto University, Japan and as an associate professor in the Department of Social Welfare at Ewha Womans University in South Korea. Her primary research areas include welfare states and labour markets, precarious employment, labour market policies and institutionalism.
She has published approximately 80 academic peer reviewed papers and books. Her notable works include research on "The Institutional Legacy of State Corporatism in Service Economy Labor Markets" and her 2023 English-language book Varieties of Precarity: Melting Labour and the Failure to Protect Workers in the Korean Welfare State has earned her the Alternative Research Award from the Korean Association of Critical and Alternative Social Welfare.
She has also authored a children's book titled Teacher, How Can We Make Work Enjoyable?,/i> and co-authored books including Korea's Precarious Workers and Basic Income is Coming. Her recent publications include Invisible Workers (2024) and the co-authored After the Square,/i>” in 2025. Currently, she is leading a research project team on ‘Digitalization, precarious work and welfare state reform in Asia’.
From 2020 to 2022, Professor Lee served as the inaugural civilian vice-chair of the Youth Policy Coordination Committee under the Prime Minister's Office and was a member of the 4th National Pension System Development Committee. She has also served as a board member of the Korean Women's Associations United, and advisor to the Korean Health and Medical Workers' Union and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions.