Towards Inclusive Social Citizenship? Rethinking China's Social Security in the Trend towards Urban–Rural Harmonisation

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 789-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHIH-JIUNN SHI
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Local Resident ◽  
Institutional Dynamics ◽  
Welfare Institutions ◽  
Urban Rural

AbstractUrban–rural harmonisation has risen to prominence in recent social security reform in China. This article offers an account of the changing welfare institutions and social citizenship configurations unfolded by this particular policy approach. As social activism gained substantial weight as part of the regional developmental strategies of local governments, harmonisation efforts have led to a boundary shift of social citizenship largely defined by the within–without criterion rather than the urban–rural divide. In places where urban–rural harmonisation takes hold, the pivotal criterion for claiming social benefits is the possession of local resident status, regardless of whether this status is urban or rural. The heterogeneity of regional social security developments resulting from social decentralisation also calls attention to the ‘variable geometry’ of institutional change, i.e. various social policy domains manifest diverse degrees of institutional dynamics towards harmonisation. In this light, urban–rural harmonisation is likely to trigger competitive solidarity in terms of regional competition and emulation in economic development and social provision, leading to regional disparities that will shape the future contours of social policy and social citizenship in China.

scholarly journals Social Policy Reforms and Economic Distances in China

2020 ◽  
pp. 145-168
Author(s):  
Qin Gao ◽  
Sui Yang ◽  
Fuhua Zhai ◽  
Yake Wang
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Poor Households ◽  
Economic Distance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
Redistributive Effects

Using CHIP data for 2002, 2007, and 2013, this chapter examines the effects of social policy reforms on the economic distance between rich and poor households in the urban, rural, and migrant sectors. In the urban sector, pensions consistently narrowed economic distances, whereas other social benefits—health insurance, social assistance, supplementary income, and in-kind benefits—had little redistributive impact. Social benefits in both the rural and migrant sectors changed from being regressive in 2002 to becoming progressive in 2013. In the rural areas, benefits in 2013 from agricultural and livelihood subsidies played the most significant redistributive role; private transfers also narrowed economic distances. Among migrants in 2013, health benefits and taxes and fees narrowed economic distances, although less so than among rural residents. Despite the expansion of social policies during this period, in both urban and rural China market forces trumped the redistributive effects of the social benefits.

scholarly journals Transformation Issues of Social Policy as a Basis for the Social Security of a State

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (46) ◽  
pp. 357-363
Author(s):  
D. H. Mykhailenko ◽  
◽  
O. V. Hrypich ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Life Quality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
External Threats ◽  
The Social

One of the important tasks of social policy is to ensure the social security and development of a state. Protection of the individual, society and the state from internal and external threats is ensured by social security. Social development is reflected in the effective implementation of social programs aimed at improving social welfare and the well-being of citizens. The article is aimed at suggesting some approaches to define social policy as a basis for the formation of social security of a state. Legal documents regulating security formation in the social sphere are considered. The components of social security are identified. Approaches to define the social policy of a state in the context of social security formation are offered. The types and models for carrying out social policies in the view of forming the social security of a state are analyzed. Ukraine’s social policy needs to be transformed, as it is characterized by low economic efficiency, this being the reason for the state’s inability to ensure a high level of well-being for all its citizens. Domestic social policy is characterized by a low level of security and limited social benefits for ordinary citizens, but the elite can use a whole system of social benefits and privileges. All this threatens the social security of the state. The ideology of domestic social policy makes the citizens highly dependent on the state, instead of promoting the citizens’ initiatives. However, the social security formation is impossible without improving life quality and bringing in social welfare, and without reforming and developing the social sphere. It can only become possible if social consensus is reached between different groups of political and economic interests and the state.

scholarly journals Social Policy and Income Inequality during the Hu–Wen Era: A Progressive Legacy?

2018 ◽  
Vol 237 ◽  
pp. 82-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qin Gao ◽  
Sui Yang ◽  
Fuhua Zhai
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Household Income ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Rural Residents ◽  
Urban Migrants ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Urban Rural

AbstractThe Hu–Wen era saw significant expansions in social policies in China. How did these policy changes affect income inequality, and did they leave a progressive legacy? Using the China Household income Project (CHIP) 2002, 2007 and 2013 data, this article offers empirical evidence to answer these questions. We find that these social policy changes indeed led to some convergence of the divided urban–rural–migrant social welfare systems and helped curtail the growing income inequality driven by market forces. Measured as the share in household final income, the size of urban social benefits decreased, while those for rural residents and rural-to-urban migrants increased from 2002 to 2013. Social benefits – especially pensions – reduced income inequality in all three groups, although to a much smaller extent for rural residents and migrants as compared to their urban peers. Rural residents also gained from agricultural and livelihood subsidies through the “Building a new socialist countryside” initiative.

War and Social Policy Development in Switzerland, 1870–1990

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthieu Leimgruber
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
State Building ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Public Private Mix

This chapter explores the trajectory of social policy development in Switzerland and its interactions with state-building and military conflict from the Franco-Prussian war of the early 1870s to the end of the Cold War. This analysis confirms that, despite the fact that Switzerland has remained untouched by war for more than 150 years, military preparation and the world wars have had a crucial impact in the shaping of the distinctive public–private mix that distinguishes the Swiss welfare state from its immediate neighbours. Periods of war thus coincided not only with an expansion of state social insurance but also witnessed the consolidation of existing private social provision. The chapter also highlights how Switzerland’s distinctive militia-based conscription contributed to forge a male-centred social citizenship that lasted for decades after 1945.

The Global Rise of Social Cash Transfers

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lutz Leisering
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Security ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Social Cash Transfers ◽  
The Right

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) proclaimed the equality of all human beings in dignity and rights. The right to social security, however, has been taken more seriously only since the 2000s, through calls for ‘Social security for all’ and ‘Leaving no one behind’. The book investigates a major response, social cash transfers to the poor. The idea of simply giving money to the poor had been rejected by all major development organizations until the 1990s, but since the early 2000s, social cash transfers have mushroomed in the global South and on agendas of international organizations. How come? What programmes have emerged in which countries? How inclusive are the programmes? What models have international organizations devised? Based on unique quantitative and qualitative data, the book takes stock of all identifiable cash transfers in all Southern countries and of the views of all major international organizations. The author argues that cash transfers reflect broader changes: new understandings of development, of human rights, of global risks, of the social responsibility of governments, and of universalism. Social cash transfers have turned the poor from objects of charity into rights-holders and agents of their own lives and of development. A repertoire of cash transfers has evolved that has enhanced social citizenship, but is limited by weak political commitments. The book also contributes to a general theory of social policy in development contexts, through a constructivist sociological approach that complements the dominant approaches from welfare economics and political economy and includes a theory of social assistance.

The politics of welfare

2021 ◽  
pp. 147488512110080
Author(s):  
Lois McNay
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Radical Politics ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Welfare Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Original Argument ◽  
Collective Activism ◽  
Historical Model ◽  
Valuable Role

Steven Klein’s excellent new book The Work of Politics is an innovative, insightful and original argument about the valuable role that welfare institutions may play in democratic movements for change. In place of a one-sided Weberian view of welfare institutions as bureaucratic instruments of social control, Klein recasts them in Arendtian terms as ‘worldly mediators’ or participatory mechanisms that act as channels for a radical politics of democratic world making. Although Klein is careful to modulate this utopian vision through a developed account of power and domination, I question the relevance of this largely historical model of world-building activism for the contemporary world of welfare. I point to the way that decades of neoliberal social policy have arguably eroded many of the social conditions and relations of solidarity that are vital prerequisites for collective activism around welfare.

scholarly journals Internalizing Animals and Ecosystems in Social Citizenship and Social Policy: From Political Community to Political Country

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6601
Author(s):  
Johan Nordensvard ◽  
Jason Alexandra ◽  
Markus Ketola
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Relation ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Biological Resources ◽  
Land Water

The aim of this editorial is to explore, conceptualize, and research the need to internalize both animals and ecosystems in our understanding of social citizenship and social policy. This editorial should be seen as a brief overview of the themes that should be covered in the contributions to the Special Issue, “Internalizing Animals and Ecosystems in Social Citizenship and Social Policy: From Political Community to Political Country”. This Special Issue argues the importance of integrating animals and ecosystems as a way to re-politicize humans’ social relation with both animals and our ecosystem as in sustainable development and social policy. If environmental policy becomes social policy, we would re-construct social citizenship to include consideration for animals and ecosystems as integral part of social policy. This expansion in scope is a progression from seeing humans as part of a political community to becoming more involved in their political country. This aligns with the concept of Country—an all-encompassing term in Australia, involving a people’s territory, land, water, biological resources, the complex obligations and relationships involved.

Transfer-based decentralisation, economic growth and spatial inequality: Evidence from China’s 2002–2003 tax sharing reform

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 806-826
Author(s):  
Fan Fan ◽  
Ming Li ◽  
Ran Tao ◽  
Dali Yang
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Spatial Inequality ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
Interregional Inequality ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Tax Sharing

China has adopted a transfer-based fiscal decentralisation scheme since the mid-1990s. In the 1994 tax sharing reform, the central government significantly raised its share of government revenue vis-à-vis local governments by taking most of the newly created value-added tax on manufacturing. One aim for the adoption of the transfer-based fiscal scheme was to channel more funds to less developed regions and rural areas, and to alleviate growing interregional inequality and urban–rural income disparity. In 2002 and 2003 the Chinese central government further grabbed 50% and 60%, respectively, of the income taxes previously assigned only to local governments while providing more fiscal transfers to the country’s poor regions and the countryside. Utilising the 2002–2003 change in China’s central–local tax sharing regime as an exogenous policy shock, we employ a Simulated Instrumental Variable approach to causally evaluate the effects of the policy shock on growth, interregional inequality and urban–rural disparity. We find the lower local tax share dis-incentivised local governments and led to lower growth. Although higher central transfers helped to reduce interregional inequalities in per capita GDP and per capita income, the equalising effects were only present for urban incomes. We argue that transfer-based decentralisation without bottom-up accountability was detrimental to economic growth and had limited impact on income redistribution.

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