Same Country, Different Promises: Disability Independent-Living Ordinances Across 15 Korean Regions

People across South Korea live under the same national laws. Yet depending on which province or metropolitan city you live in, what your regional government has written down as a duty, and what it has written down as merely an option, can be quite different.

In my last post I promised to compare local ordinances region by region. This post keeps that promise. The subject is independent living for people with disabilities.

The ordinances define the term themselves. Article 2 of Daejeon's ordinance describes independent living as a disabled person choosing and deciding about their own life, and living it independently, within the local community.

Each of the 15 regional governments whose ordinance texts I retrieved from Korea's official legal information service (law.go.kr) has an ordinance on this subject. Jeonbuk has two, so there are 16 in total. Gwangju and Jeonnam are not yet in my collected data, so they are left out for now.

The names already diverge. Six regions use the plain title "support for independent living of persons with disabilities". Seven put "persons with severe disabilities" in the title. Busan and Jeonbuk put "deinstitutionalisation" in the title, and Seoul adds "settling in the local community".

A narrower-sounding title does not automatically mean narrower coverage; the definition clause decides. Daejeon, for example, defines the people it covers by reference to Article 2(2) of the national Act on employment promotion and vocational rehabilitation of disabled persons.

I compared one thing: the needs survey. Policy starts with knowing the numbers. South Chungcheong's ordinance (Article 4) spells out what the survey must cover: the wish of people in residential institutions to leave and transition, and the independent-living needs of disabled people living at home.

Of the 16 ordinances, 11 say the region "shall" carry out the survey every three years: Gyeonggi, Gyeongnam, Gyeongbuk, Daegu, Seoul, Sejong, Ulsan, Incheon, Chungnam, Chungbuk, and one of Jeonbuk's two ordinances.

Two ordinances say the same three-year survey "may" be carried out: Busan's and Jeonbuk's deinstitutionalisation and independent-living ordinances (Article 7 in both). The two ordinances that put deinstitutionalisation in their names leave the survey optional. Jeonbuk's other ordinance does make the survey a duty.

The remaining three differ again. Jeju sets no interval but says the survey "shall" be done, with a basic plan every four years, an annual support plan, and a duty to hear disability organisations. Gangwon says the governor "may" survey. Daejeon's 2015 text starts from planning instead: Article 3 requires a support plan every year.

There is a caveat. Eight of the 11 "shall" ordinances allow the regional survey to be replaced by the national disability survey under Article 31 of Korea's disability welfare act, which the Minister of Health and Welfare must conduct every three years. Most of them add that the region may survey additional items as needed. Busan likewise allows its survey to be folded into the national one.

Even under the same heading, there is real distance between "shall" and "may". A survey written as a duty gives residents and local councils grounds to ask when it was last done. And where the national survey is used instead, they can ask whether region-specific items were added.

Anyone can look up their own region's ordinance on law.go.kr under local laws. One line is enough: does the survey clause say "shall" or "may"?

In the next post I will line up another ordinance that all 15 regions have, on the rights of people with developmental disabilities, in the same way.

Sources

• [A] 장애인복지법 — 제31조(실태조사) — 보건복지부장관은 3년마다 장애실태조사를 실시하여야 한다
• [A] 강원특별자치도 장애인 자립생활 지원 조례 — 2023-06-09 공포 · 제5조 · 실태를 조사할 수 있다
• [A] 경기도 장애인 자립생활 지원 조례 — 2026-06-29 공포 · 제6조 · 3년마다 조사하여 계획을 수립하여야 한다 · 법 제31조 조사로 갈음
• [A] 경상남도 장애인 자립생활 지원 조례 — 2020-05-14 공포 · 제4조 · 3년마다 조사하여 계획을 수립하여야 한다 · 법 제31조 조사로 갈음
• [A] 경상북도 중증장애인 자립생활 지원조례 — 2025-12-29 공포 · 제5조 · 3년마다 조사하여야 한다
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• [A] 서울특별시 장애인 자립생활 및 지역사회 정착 지원에 관한 조례 — 2024-07-15 공포 · 제5조 · 3년마다 조사하여야 한다
• [A] 세종특별자치시 중증장애인 자립생활지원 조례 — 2023-03-06 공포 · 제4조 · 3년마다 조사하여 계획을 수립하여야 한다 · 법 제31조 조사로 갈음
• [A] 울산광역시 중증장애인 자립생활 지원 조례 — 2021-03-18 공포 · 3년마다 조사하여야 한다
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• [A] 전북특별자치도 장애인 탈시설ㆍ자립생활 지원 조례 — 2024-05-31 공포 · 제7조 · 3년마다 실시할 수 있다
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• [A] 충청북도 중증장애인 자립생활 지원 조례 — 2016-01-01 공포 · 제4조 · 3년마다 조사하여 계획을 수립하여야 한다 · 법 제31조 조사로 갈음

Welfare in Korea