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When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", University of Southampton, name of the University School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination http://eprints.soton.ac.uk UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY OF LAW, ARTS, AND SOCIAL SCIENCES School of Social Science Public-Private Pension Mix in East Asia -An Integrated Political-Economic Explanation by Chung-Yang Yeh Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2014 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE Sociology and Social Policy Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy PUBLIC-PRIVATE PENSION MIX IN EAST ASIA - AN INTEGRATED POLITICAL-ECONOMIC EXPLANTION Chung-Yang Yeh Inspired by the regime approach, East Asia is identified as a distinctive welfare state regime featuring ‘the subordination of social policy to economic or industrial objects’ and consequently, the significance of private welfare. The public-private pension mix, as a critical criterion in the welfare regime approach, however, was not scrutinised. This study aims to explain the cross-national variations in the patterns of the public-private pension mix, and pension reforms, in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. After reviewing five perspectives, I elaborate an integrated political-economic explanation through synthesis of the developmental state thesis and the varieties of capitalism to analyse similarities and variations in public-private pension mix in East Asian welfare states. This integrated political-economic explanation assumes that, in order for economic catch-up, the East Asian governments had to be production- oriented, acting as the institutional coordinator, but how they coordinate institutional coherence between social protection and capitalist production depends on their national capitalist structures. Through ‘comparative institutional analysis’ and ‘comparative historical analysis’, this study demonstrates that shaped by national capitalist structure, political actors’ pension preferences are divergent and, consequently, the patterns of the public-private pension mix in East Asia. In Japan and Korea’s business-conglomerate-dominated capitalist structure, the state and employers tend to used pensions to resolve economic coordination of capital and skill formation in the post-war period. Since 1980s, Japan and Korea reformed the pension systems in line with the dualist strategy- the universalisation of public pensions and the introduction of DC corporate absorb the cost, and address problems, of the non- regularisation of the labour markets; but core workers are maintained having generous corporate welfare and employment security. Both Japan and Korea, therefore, have ‘basic’ and ‘earning-related’ public pensions, supplemented by a well-developed corporate pension system. By contrast, pension rarely considered as a resource in economic coordination and capital mobilisation, but initially as a policy instrument of social control, that enhances ethnic division between indigenous Taiwanese and mainland Chinese, in Taiwan’s SMEs-dominated capitalist structure. Through exploitation of ethnic division by the opposition party, the pension issue arose following democratisation. The institutional fragmentation, and its SMEs-dominated capitalist structure, however, forced the state to select a fragmented national pension scheme. Due to its SMEs-dominated capitalist structure, of which flexibility is treasured as the main comparative institutional advantage, corporate pensions are negligible in Taiwan. Thus, the statist pension system was created, and remains. This study concluded that the integrated political-economic explanation is a more appropriate for illuminating pension and social policy variations in East Asia, and remind us that social policy variation within East Asia should not be ignored. Content Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... i Abbreviations ............................................................................................................... iii Chapter 1 – Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 1.1 East Asian Welfare State Regime?: A Critical Review ...................................................... 1 1.2 Pension Systems in East Asia: An Unsolved Puzzle ......................................................... 3 1.3 Brief Argument and the Organisation of the Thesis ........................................................ 6 Chapter 2 – Literature Review ..................................................................................... 11 2.1 The Logic of Industrialism .............................................................................................. 11 2.2 The Power Resource Theory .......................................................................................... 12 2.3 The Democratisation Thesis .......................................................................................... 15 2.4 The Developmental State Thesis ................................................................................... 18 2.5 The Varieties of Capitalism Perspective ........................................................................ 21 Conclusion and Discussion .................................................................................................. 26 Chapter 3 – Towards an Integrated Political-Economic Explanation .......................... 29 3.1 State as Institutional Coordinator ................................................................................. 30 3.2 The Diversity of Capitalist Production ........................................................................... 32 3.3 Cross-class Coalition – State-Business Relations ........................................................... 39 Conclusion: The Analytic Framework and Theoretical Assumptions .................................. 43 Chapter 4 – Research Design ....................................................................................... 47 4.1 Case selection – Japan, Korea and Taiwan .................................................................... 47 4.2 Research Methods ......................................................................................................... 48 Chapter 5 – The Diversity of East Asian Capitalisms ................................................. 53 5.1 Business Systems in East Asia ........................................................................................ 53 5.2 Financial Systems in East Asia ....................................................................................... 60 5.3 Labour Market Regimes in East Asia ............................................................................. 67 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 78 Chapter 6 – Japan ......................................................................................................... 83 6.1 The Origins of the Japanese Pension System (1945-1980) ........................................... 83 6.2 The Dualisation of the Pension System since the 1980s ............................................. 101 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 117 Chapter 7 – Korea ...................................................................................................... 121 7.1 The Origins of the Korean Pension System (1945-1980) ............................................. 121 7.2 The Dualisation of the Korean Pension System since the 1980s ................................. 132 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 150 Chapter 8 – Taiwan .................................................................................................... 153 8.1 The Origins of the Statist Pension System in Taiwan (1945-1990) .............................. 154 8.2 ‘Pension for All’ in the Era of Democratic Regime ...................................................... 164 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 178 Chapter 9 – Conclusion .............................................................................................. 181 9.1 Institutional Complementarities in East Asia .............................................................. 181 9.2 Theoretical Reflections and Contributions .................................................................. 194 9.3 Prospects for the Future: An East Asian Welfare Regime? ......................................... 200 Appendix 1. Economic Indicators .............................................................................