12. Building Social Welfare in China: Providing Retirement Incomes in a Transforming Economy
12. Building Social Welfare in China: Providing retirement incomes in a transforming economy Andrew Watson Introduction Rapid growth and structural reforms since 1978 have transformed the economic and social basis of China’s welfare system. A sedentary population serviced through the unit of employment has been replaced with a mobile labour force, a market economy and greater reliance on user-pays principles. Until the 1980s, China’s welfare provision was based on the planned economy model, whereby the employer was responsible for all aspects of the employee’s welfare, including old-age retirement income. In urban areas this revolved around the work unit—be it enterprise or government organisation—and in the countryside the people’s communes provided for their members (Dixon 1981). Once the market reforms were introduced, such a system could no longer be sustained. Labour became mobile, enterprises became profit oriented, the people’s communes disappeared and the sources of poverty and disadvantage changed. China thus faced the need to rebuild its welfare system by creating services that are more standardised across society as a whole, are accessible to all citizens, are linked to the government’s budget and are operated through specialised service providers. In effect, the work unit could no longer supply employees and retirees with the full range of housing, medical, welfare and retirement benefits that had been the norm. China had to build a social welfare system with the familiar range of services found in market economies: unemployment benefits, health insurance, work injury cover, maternity support and old-age retirement incomes. Alongside its role in maintaining social justice, equity and stability, the provision of social welfare can be seen both as a basic safety net to provide ex-post support to citizens in need and as developmental to provide ex-ante preparation for the challenges created by structural economic change (Cook et al.
[Show full text]