What Is the Course of Pensions in Chinese Enterprises?——A Discussion Starting from the "Measures for Old Age Pension Management (Draft)"

The "Trial Measures on Enterprise Annuity" and the "Trial Measures on Enterprise Annuity Fund Management" (abbreviated as"Two Trial Measures" below) promulgated by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security in 2004 laid the basic framework for the pen-     

NDIS Self‐Management Approaches: Opportunities for choice and control or an Uber‐style wild west?

This article examines the emerging challenges and opportunities presented by self‐management options in Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). We examine the three different ways in which NDIS participants can opt to self‐manage their funding and services, including direct employment and emerging Uber‐style online platforms, and explore the potential implications of these options for NDIS participants, service providers and the disability support workforce. In particular, we focus on these options in relation to the transition to a marketised services landscape being developed alongside the NDIS, and examine both the risks and opportunities for each stakeholder group. Through this analysis, we identify implications for policy and practice, in particular around regulatory mechanisms and the role of government within this emerging market economy and transforming service landscape.     

Is Personalization the Right Plan at the Wrong Time? Re‐thinking Cash‐for‐Care in an Age of Austerity

As personalization has dominated the policy agenda for reform in social care, its roll‐out as a mainstream option has coincided with global programmes of austerity which have targeted services for disabled people. Was this simply bad timing or was its implementation always part of the agenda for reform? Whilst the principle of cash‐for‐care schemes drew strongly on promoting the independence and autonomy of disabled people, early incarnations of direct payments policy in the UK were initially at least in part rolled out in light of potential cost savings to social care budgets. This article explores these and other issues in light of evaluations of the Scottish government's self‐directed support (SDS) test sites (2009–11) and implementation of subsequent legislation enforcing models of SDS in Scotland from April 2014. Discussion draws on the authors’ recent book (Pearson et al. 2014) to reflect on what the evidence can tell us about radically transforming social care at a time of global austerity.     

DIAOBINGSHAN:A Combination of the Young and Old

Diaobingshan people are young and vigorous.But they benefi t a lot from the long history of city.During our interview,we were deeply impressed by this and found a city different from others.     

Mandatory Defined‐Contribution Pension Systems: Progress — or Regression?

While mandatory defined-contribution pension systems can be designed so that they are neutral or progressive in their effects on income distribution, a number of features they commonly contain are regressive. In determining whether a defined-contribution system is neutral or regressive, it is important to examine its actual features rather than a stylized version. Because administrative costs for managing financial accounts often are the same for large- or small-value accounts, there is a tendency for for-profit financial institutions to charge flat-rate fees or fees that, in relation to account balances, are higher for small accounts than for large accounts. These fees are one of the reasons why defined-contribution system tend to be regressive.     

Has the Portuguese NHS Achieved its Objectives of Equity and Efficiency?

The Portuguese healthcare system has been in a state of continuous change since the political revolution of 1974, which brought about a constitutional commitment to a universal and comprehensive national health service. Despite much legislative activity, only partial implementation of these laws has taken place and the current system requires further changes if it is to attain its stated objectives of increasing equity and efficiency. This article analyses and assesses the state of the healthcare system in Portugal based on a review of the literature and interviews with key policymakers and academics and evaluates it against the criteria of equity and efficiency.     

Capitalizing the Crisis? Explanatory Factors for the Design of Short‐time Work across Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development Countries

This article looks at the financial and economic crisis 2008–10 in 18 Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development states and seeks to investigate explanatory paths for the subsidization of further education within short‐time work programmes. Several hypotheses are put to the test: first, a classical partisan difference argument; second, a varieties of capitalism approach proposing a successful joint rallying of employers and employees for subsidization in coordinated market economies; and, lastly, the merged hypothesis that right‐wing parties in a coordinated economic context might subsidize feeling the pressure to overcompensate an ‘issue ownership’ of left parties in the field of employee‐friendly policies. We identify four explanatory paths: coordinated economies in the sample subsidized when they were economically closed or highly indebted. The results also support our combined hypothesis, that New Zealand – a left‐governed liberal market economy – and right‐governed coordinated market economies of the non‐Scandinavian type subsidized.     

Can Case Management Contribute to Effective Use of Small Self‐Directed Support Packages for People with Disabilities?

While self‐directed support for people with disabilities and their families represents a welcome shift toward self‐determination and increasing control, the risk of managing with insufficient funds remains. This article examines whether different types of case management can mitigate that risk by providing support when people have only a small direct funding package. It applies the question to an evaluated program of self‐directed support in Queensland, Australia that allocated A$4000 with one of two approaches to case management: program‐focused or organizationally oriented. Case management contributed to the effective use of limited budgets and addressing goals when it promoted choice and control, built relationships, and enabled flexible fund use. Program‐focused case management seemed to be less constrained in enhancing social participation than organizationally oriented case management, which tended to restrict some participatory opportunities. These findings are consistent with earlier research, which indicated that case management can interfere with participation. Even in the context of a small funding allocation, a case management approach that promotes flexibility and person‐centered planning, control over funding, and capacity building can improve the effectiveness of self‐directed support; however it does not overcome the inherent limitations of insufficient funds for adequate support, or the cost of case management itself.     

Gaps in social protection for health care and long‐term care in Europe: Are the elderly faced with financial ruin?

While public expenditure on health care and long‐term care (LTC) has been monitored for many years in European countries, far less attention has been paid to the financial consequences for older people of private out‐of‐pocket (OOP) expenditure necessary to access such care. Employing representative cross‐sectional data on the elderly populations of 11 European countries in 2004 from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we find that OOP payments for health care and LTC are very common among the elderly across European countries and such expenditures impact significantly on disposable income: up to 95 per cent of the elderly make OOP payments for health care and 5 per cent for LTC, resulting in income reductions of between 5 and 10 per cent, respectively. Failure to prevent financial ruin, as a consequence of excessive OOP payments, is evident in 0.7 per cent of elderly households utilizing health care and 0.5 per cent of elderly households utilizing LTC. Those particularly concerned are the poor, women and the very old.     

The Genesis of “The Meaning of the Classics”:On the Objectives and Methods of Jingxue Hermeneutics

In terms of the construction of meaning, what jingxue(study of the classics) deals with is precisely the hermeneutics of the Confucian classics. Jingxue hermeneutics is fundamentally practical statecraft; therefore, its specific objectives do not point to an objective existence unrelated to human beings, but to yi(meaning) or yili(principles), otherwise known as jingyi(meaning of the classics) or dayi(profound significance). “The meaning of the classics” is the product of interpretation. In jing...     

Consumer‐directed care for older Australians: Are resources identified on the Web adequate to support decisions about home‐based care packages?

Consumer‐directed care (CDC) was introduced as part of aged care policy reforms in Australia in 2012. CDC aims to promote choice and control for people with complex needs who need home care and supports. While more choices may bring benefits, information and resources are needed by people to navigate new and complex care‐related decisions. In 2017, we identified the resources available to support consumers of the new CDC Home Care Packages (HCP) program via an Internet search. Forty‐six resources were analysed to assess the adequacy of information to inform care choices. General information was most frequently found, but information to guide specific choices, such as choosing or changing service providers, was limited. Accessibility of information was limited for non‐English speakers and for people with low literacy or reduced capacity for decision making. No training opportunities were identified, and only one non‐partisan organisation offered support for decision making. Overall, the information and supports analysed were not adequate to assist older people to make choices to ensure consumer direction of care. There is an urgent need to improve the quality and accessibility of information and provide training and support for choice, particularly for those with limited decision‐making capacity, such as those living with dementia.     

Coexisting principles and logics of elder care: Help to self‐help and consumer‐oriented service?

Healthy and active ageing has become an ideal in Western societies. In the Nordic countries, this ideal has been supported through a policy of help to self‐help in elder care since the 1980s. However, reforms inspired by New Public Management (NPM) have introduced a new policy principle of consumer‐oriented service that stresses the wishes and priorities of older people. We have studied how these two principles are applied by care workers in Denmark. Is one principle or logic replacing the other, or do they coexist? Do they create tensions between professional knowledge and the autonomy of older people? Using neo‐institutional theory and feminist care theory, we analysed the articulation of the two policy principles in interviews and their logics in observations in four local authorities. We conclude that help to self‐help is the dominant principle, that it is deeply entrenched in the identity of the professional care worker and that it coexists with consumer‐oriented service and without major tensions in the logics identified in their practices.     

Are Quasi‐markets in Education what the British Public Wants?

In the context of inconclusive evidence on the extrinsic successes of quasi‐markets, policy defences of school choice and competition in education have often discussed the intrinsic, empowering value of choice for consumers, arguing that school choice for parents is ‘what people want’. Discourses often imply that choice is desired for its own sake rather than merely as a means by which families can escape what are deemed to be poor quality schools. Support for an idealistic, abstract notion of ‘choice’ is also taken to imply support for quasi‐markets overall and is not considered alongside possible competing values that people may hold at the same time as they value choice. Additionally, views of parents are often examined without considering possible differences in views between parents and non‐parents. Contributing to debates about how far a public desire exists for quasi‐markets in education, this article draws on data from newly designed questions fielded as part of the 2010 British Social Attitudes survey. The article finds that while choice ‘in the abstract’ is supported widely by both parents and non‐parents (albeit slightly more so by parents), a valuing of choice among the British public appears to be more instrumental than intrinsic – potentially problematic given evidence on the extrinsic benefits of quasi‐markets is mixed. Support for choice is tempered among parents and non‐parents by clear opposition to vouchers, school diversity, government spending on transport costs to facilitate choice and by strong support for the idea of sending children to the ‘nearest state school’.     

Can Quasi‐market and Multi‐level Governance Co‐exist? Insights from the Case of Lombardy's Employment Services System

This article explores the functioning of Lombardy's networked employment services system, inspired by quasi‐market and horizontal subsidiarity principles, and specifically addresses a gap in the quasi‐market literature, where little attention is devoted to the role played by institutions at lower levels of government. A qualitative study of the Lombardy system, with a focus on the municipality of Milan, is relied upon in order to explore the extent to which the principles of quasi‐market and multi‐level governance pursued by the regional government are allowed to co‐exist in practice. Here, sub‐regional levels of government are directly involved in services provision, but enjoy a more privileged condition relative to the private providers, thereby jeopardizing the implementation of an effective quasi‐market. The article contributes to existing theories by suggesting that horizontal subsidiarity and marketization cannot neglect multi‐level governance in those sectors where public bodies at various levels of government are directly involved in implementation.     

A fistful of euros: Is the German one‐euro job workfare scheme effective for participants?

Hohmeyer K, Wolff J. A fistful of euros: is the German one‐euro job workfare scheme effective for participants? Welfare reforms have constituted a major policy issue in many OECD countries in recent decades. In Germany, a major reform in 2005 emphasised the activation of welfare recipients and introduced a workfare programme –‘One‐Euro Jobs’– on a large scale. In the present study, the impact of one‐euro jobs on the employment prospects of different groups of participants was estimated. The analysis was conducted on a large sample of welfare recipients using propensity score matching. The sample of one‐euro job participants and other welfare recipients was drawn from administrative records comprising all those who started their participation in the programme in early 2005. Our results showed that participation slightly improved the medium‐term employment prospects for women but not for men. Participation reduced the employment rate of participants younger than 25 years but raised it for some of the older participant groups. In conclusion, one‐euro jobs are effective for participants who have been jobless for several years but ineffective for participants who were recently employed.     

Gender‐specific or Common Classroom Norms? Examining the Contextual Moderators of the Risk for Victimization

We tested whether gender‐specific vs. common classroom norms were more powerful moderators of the association between a risk factor (rejection) and peer victimization among girls and boys. The participants were 1220 elementary schoolchildren from grades 4–6 (with 10–13 years of age). We compared different multilevel models including combined vs. separate regressions for boys and girls, as well as the effects of norms of the whole class, same‐sex classmates, and cross‐sex classmates. Among girls, the association between rejection and victimization was strongest in classes where bullying behavior was common, and anti‐bullying attitudes were rare among girls. Among boys, the strength of the slope of victimization on rejection could not be explained by either common or gender‐specific classroom norms, but boys' level of bullying behavior was related to overall classroom level of victimization. The findings suggest that contextual factors may contribute to victimization especially among high‐risk girls. The importance of exploring multiple levels of influence on children's social development is discussed.     

Class politics in the sandbox? An analysis of the socio‐economic determinants of preferences towards public spending and parental fees for childcare

This article analyses the socio‐economic determinants of public preferences towards public spending and parental fees for childcare and how they are conditioned by institutional contexts. Previous studies of childcare policy preferences have focused on attitudes regarding the provision of care. However, when it comes to questions of financing, we know astonishingly little about how supportive individuals actually are of expanding pre‐school early childhood education and care, and how support varies across different socio‐economic groups in society. This is an important research gap because childcare provision and how it is financed have redistributive implications, which vary depending on the institutional design of childcare policy. Using novel and unique survey data on childcare preferences from eight European countries, we argue and show that preferences towards expanding childcare are more contested than it is often assumed. The institutional structure of childcare shapes how income matters for preferences towards how much should be spent and how provision should be financed. Where access to childcare is socially stratified, the poor and the rich develop different preferences towards either increasing public spending or reducing parental fees in order to improve their access to childcare. The findings in this article suggest that expanding childcare in systems characterised by unequal access can be politically contested due to diverging policy priorities of individuals from different social backgrounds.