New Economy and New Social Policy in East and Southeast Asian Compact, Mature Economies: The Case of Hong Kong

In the 1970s, as the now compact, mature economies in East and Southeast Asia were industrializing, their governments had claimed that they saw no need for the kind of welfare programmes developed in Western “welfare states”. Notwithstanding this claim, a study of social welfare development in these economies in the last three decades, particularly when Hong Kong is taken as an example, shows that they have gone for universal social welfare, largely as a result of the growing prosperity and the rising expectations of the people. This trend has, however, been reversed since the start of the Asian financial crisis in the latter part of 1997, with the resultant slowing down of the economy, rising unemployment and surging fiscal deficits. Governments of the compact, mature economies in East and Southeast Asia found that they must rethink their social commitments and in order to return to balanced budgets, the former selective approach is now adopted by concentrating social welfare resources on the most needy people. While it is not in dispute that there is a close and positive relationship between industrialization and social welfare, the case of the compact, mature economies in East and Southeast Asia shows that as they are more vulnerable to world economic vicissitudes, the relationship may not be as steady as it has been in the Western industrial states.     

Ending poverty in Mongolia: From socialism to social development

While recent literature on social welfare has included Asian countries, less is known about low‐income and former socialist countries in Central Asia. This article combines a documentary‐historical method with a value‐critical approach to analyze Mongolia's social policy response to poverty. Mongolia is unique in Asia because it transformed from nomadic pastoralism to socialism without a phase of capitalist industrial development. The case study found that Mongolia lost social welfare when it transitioned from socialism, a statist model, to market liberalism and multiparty democracy. In the 21st century, Mongolia has been aspiring to promote social development by redirecting mining revenues to a human development fund. Mongolia is potentially an exemplar of social development strategies affirmed at the United Nations Conference for Social Development (Rio+20) regarding a green economy for inclusive growth and poverty elimination. Future social welfare research should consider the importance of sustainability. Key Practitioner Message: ● Global standards for tracking poverty alleviation will be integrated with sustainability measures beginning in 2015; ● Mongolia hopes to foster social development and sustainable livelihoods by reinvesting revenues from mining into human capital and health care; ● To sustain future generations, social policy needs to consider the relationship between natural capital, social capital, and financial capital.     

The reform of the developmental welfare state in East Asia

This article examines social policy reforms in East Asia and whether the welfare states in the region became more inclusive in terms of social protection while maintaining their developmental credentials. It draws on findings from the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) project on social policy in East Asia, covering China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, Japan, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan Province of China, and Thailand. It shows that East Asian economies responded differently to the crisis in terms of welfare reform. While Singapore and Hong Kong maintained the basic structure of the selective developmental welfare state, Korea, Taiwan, and, to a lesser extent, Thailand implemented social policy reforms toward a more inclusive one. Despite such different responses, policy changes are explained by the proposition of the developmental welfare state: the instrumentality of social policy for economic development and realization of policy changes through democratization (or the lack of it).     

Housing policy and asset building: exploring the role of home ownership in East Asian social policy

Western societies promote home ownership in the belief that it provides a means to build up individual welfare and security, potentially offsetting the inadequacy of social security to meet needs in retirement. Some East Asian economies have long focused on advancing ‘asset building’ through housing policy. These efforts have two purposes: to use housing investment to drive economic development and to build family assets throughout life as a component of income protection for old age. These purposes work well in some countries but not as well in others. In policy terms, the common element among them is that governments promote home ownership as a component of social policy or as a complement to mainstream welfare. This article examines how home ownership fares as a form of asset-based welfare in selected East Asian countries (Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan) and considers the implications for understanding the role of institutions in development.     

East Asian welfare model refocus? A case study on economic support for the elderly living alone in Taiwan

This article argues that the concept of the East Asian welfare regime can be further developed by examining the changing role of the family in welfare provision. Beginning with a brief literature review of the East Asian welfare model, the family has been regarded as the main welfare provider among East Asian societies. Nevertheless, from a policy‐centred perspective, the oversimplified picture of the East Asian welfare model does not reveal how families actually perform in welfare provision or how the dynamic change in the welfare mix for vulnerable groups under the welfare regime has been accommodated. This article presents a case study and shows that while most elderly people in Taiwan still live with their children, who are also their main means of support, a significant number of them are living alone and that much of the economic support they used to receive from nongovernmental organisation now comes from the state.     

Changing Welfare Regimes in East and Southeast Asia: Crisis, Change and Challenge

The Asia‐Pacific region is a latecomer to the development of the welfare state. However, in some countries, governments have implemented ambitious programmes to extend social security systems and to enlarge the institutional structure of their welfare states. Comparative study of the welfare systems in East and Southeast Asia is, however, underdeveloped and there still is a relative lack of accurate knowledge about welfare systems in the region. Since the Asian financial crisis, more attention has been paid to the social policies of the countries. This paper examines features of welfare regimes in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, and undertakes a systematic review of the development, levels and patterns of welfare regimes in the region. Two core questions are answered: can the existing welfare systems help mitigate the social impact of the financial and economic crisis? What are the needs, challenges and developmental perspectives that inform the future of welfare regimes in this region?     

Bringing Indonesia into the global welfare regime debate: A literature review and future research agenda

Studies on welfare state regimes have been dominated by consideration of rich OECD/European and increasingly East Asian countries/territories, leaving South Asian cases such as Indonesia underexplored. The few existing studies that have explicitly tried to conceptualize the Indonesian welfare regime have resulted in little consensus. To address the resulting lack of clarity, this article reviews scholarly articles relevant to bringing Indonesia into the global welfare regime debate, specifically encapsulating how the country has been classified compared with its East Asia counterparts. Accordingly, we find that existing studies have mainly concentrated on the Indonesian health care and social protection expansion, which has led authors to conclude that this evolution demonstrates Indonesia's transition away from welfare productivism. By contrast, we argue that Indonesia's productivist characteristics have largely prevailed while informal networks, clientelism, strong families, and the limited effectiveness of the civil society movement created a specific social politics in Indonesia. We thus conclude that the causal mechanisms typically attributed to welfare development in more developed welfare geographies, including East Asia, cannot fully explain the evident institutional formation in the Indonesian case. The future research agenda for studying the welfare regimes in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries is discussed.     

The Contributions of the Health Decommodification Typologies to the Study of the East Asian Welfare Regime

Since Esping‐Andersen presented the three worlds of welfare typology thesis, the study of the classification of welfare regimes has been dominated by his work and the debates surrounding it. This article is concerned with two important responses to his work. The first response is the development of welfare typologies based on the principle of decommodification. The second response is the concern that East Asian countries are underrepresented in the 18 members of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) studied by Esping‐Andersen. As a result, there are calls for expanding the scope of the studies on the classification of welfare regimes to those in East Asia. This article makes contributions to these two responses by presenting two analytical tasks. The first task is to develop two health decommodification typologies based on two different methods (cluster analysis and Esping‐Andersen's index‐based regime construction). Both of them cover the 18 OECD members studied by Esping‐Andersen and four tiger economies (Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore). The second task is to demonstrate that the two health decommodification typologies provide important information for the debate on the existence of two essential preconditions for the development of an all‐encompassing East Asian welfare regime, namely the existence of significant differences in the welfare systems between the East Asian countries and the 18 OECD countries studied by Esping‐Andersen (1990 ) and the existence of significant similarities in the welfare systems between East Asian countries.     

East Asian Welfare Regimes: Testing the Hypothesis of the Developmental Welfare State

Following the three welfare regimes constructed by Esping‐Andersen, many scholars have addressed the question of whether there may be a further type of regime, differing from the categories of liberal, conservative and social democratic, pertaining to other parts of the world. Discussion has centred largely on East Asia and, in particular, on the notion of the developmental/productivist welfare regime. Yet these discussions have been based more on conceptual classification than empirical analysis. This article attempts to fill in the gap, with reference to the developmental characteristics of Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. A set of 15 indicators is developed for the factor and cluster analysis of 20 countries, based on data from the 1980s and 1990s. The results indicate the existence of a new group, consisting of Taiwan and South Korea, which is distinct from Esping‐Andersen's three regimes – unlike Japan, which remains a composite of various regime types. Regime characteristics peculiar to the cases of Taiwan and South Korea include: low/medium social security expenditure, high social investment, more extensive gender discrimination in salary, medium/high welfare stratification, a high non‐coverage rate for pensions, high individual welfare loading, and high family welfare responsibility. When compared with Esping‐Andersen's three regimes, the East Asian developmental regime shows similarity with his conservative model, in respect of welfare stratification, while the non‐coverage of welfare entitlements is similar to his liberal model. There is virtually no evidence of any similarity between the developmental welfare regime and Esping‐Andersen's social democratic regime type.     

Redefining “Old Age” and “Dependency” in East Asia: Is “Prospective Aging” A More Helpful Concept?

East Asian societies are currently some of the most rapidly aging in the world. Projections of the traditional old‐age dependency ratios (OADR) present a daunting future of the size of the aged population both in absolute terms and, in the context of low fertility, relative to the future workforce. Recently scholars, especially Sanderson and Scherbov, have argued that OADR is inadequate as a guide to future levels of dependency based, as it is, on past scenarios of “old age” and “dependency” rather than current and future notions. Indeed, in the context of rapidly aging settings in East Asia with developmental welfare states, the OADR has probably never been truly relevant, is profoundly unhelpful and could lead to policy paralysis. As such, Sanderson and Scherbov suggested a new method to measure aging prospectively to take into account both improved life expectancy and health across the life‐course. We introduce these new measurements as a possible new, more radical and optimistic way to think about aging in East Asia. These measurements more accurately demonstrate the “boundaries” to “dependency” and, hence, demonstrate the potential room for social policy interventions to maximize “active aging” for the population currently, perhaps incorrectly, defined as “old” and “dependent”.     

Neither Hybrid nor Unique: A Reinterpretation of the East Asian Welfare Regime

Some researchers have been convinced that welfare developments in East Asia, especially Japan and Korea, can be fitted into the existing three worlds of welfare model, while others have insisted that existing welfare regime theories are not able to explain East Asian welfare regimes. This article assumes that we need to go beyond both of these traditional explanations. In the welfare state research fields, welfare regime approaches tend to focus on specific contextual conditions and cross‐national differences. As a result, they tend to overemphasize history at the expense of theory. This article tries to combine deductive causal modeling with an institutional–historical context by identifying the contingent rent political game model and deducing important characteristics of East Asian welfare regime from this model. This model opens out the possibility of change in East Asian welfare regimes following the processes of democratization and globalization. Details of this are given in the conclusion.     

Does family still matter? Public and private transfers in emerging welfare state systems in a comparative perspective

Kim JW, Choi YJ. Does family still matter? Public and private transfers in emerging welfare state systems in a comparative perspective Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 353–366 © 2010 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. While the role of the family has been a distinctive feature of East Asian welfare systems, rapid social policy development and reforms in South Korea and Taiwan over the last two decades have led to an increase in public welfare. Yet, despite a growing number of studies, little is known about the role of family support – private transfers – and public programmes in the performance of state welfare. This article reports on a comparative analysis of the role of public and private transfers aimed at poverty and inequality reduction in 12 Western and two East Asian states employing the Luxemburg Income Study data set. Results indicate that, in contrast to the West, private transfers that rest primarily on family support remain more important than public transfers in reducing income inequality and poverty in South Korea and Taiwan.     

Analyzing the Productive and Protective Dimensions of Welfare: Looking Beyond the OECD

Several theorists have argued that social policy in East Asia can be seen as representing a distinctive welfare ideal type based around ‘productive welfare’. However, we have contested such claims in earlier work (Hudson and Kühner 2009) and, in common with theorists such as Castells, have suggested that some of the welfare states of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) have a distinct bias towards the ‘productive’ rather than ‘protective’ dimensions of welfare. In this article, we build on our earlier work, utilizing fuzzy set ideal type analysis (FSITA) to explore the balance between ‘productive' and ‘protective’ dimensions of welfare state activity. Here we extend our analysis beyond the OECD, incorporating a range of nations on the ‘fringe’ of the OECD from Latin America, East Asia and the non‐OECD parts of Europe. In so doing, we contest simple notions of welfare regimes aligning with regional blocks. Primarily, however, we highlight the advantages of the ‘diversity‐orientated’ approach to data analysis that fuzzy set methods facilitate in comparison with standard quantitative techniques. In particular, we utilize FSITA to avoid data availability and reliability issues that have plagued quantitatively informed classifications of global welfare regimes. Not least, we argue FSITA allows for the contextualization of cases in a way that is sealed to quantitatively driven, comparative research. Thus, we argue FSITA has an important role to play in attempts to extend the inclusiveness of the ‘welfare modelling business’ in a manner that reflects diverse and highly significant cases beyond the Western lens that dominates the literature.     

Social Policy in Singapore: Insights from a Social Work Perspective

Social work practice, irrespective of the location of practice, is shaped by local conditions, particularly the laws and policies applicable to the practice. Most governments adopt some form of institutional arrangements pertinent to local conditions to meet local needs, such arrangements in Western contexts commonly being described as the welfare state. In other contexts, notably the East Asian context, the Western welfare state has been deemed inappropriate for meeting local needs. In this discussion there will be a focus on arrangements developed in Singapore, a country in the East Asian region. Although Singapore has eschewed any notion of a welfare state, this discussion will demonstrate that it does have in place a range of policy responses to meet Singaporean needs and that these measures are consistent with the frameworks adopted by emerging Confucian welfare states.     

The East Asian welfare model

This article aims to outline main features of the East Asian welfare model, to understand its past development and assess lessons that can be learned for other developing and developed countries. It describes the particular path of welfare state development in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, by focusing particularly on developmental and political aspects of welfare state development. In the final part of the study, particular features of the East Asian welfare model are outlined, and thus the existence of a distinct, ideal-typical welfare regime in East Asia substantiated.     

Financial crisis and the developmental states: A case study of Hong Kong

Studies taking a mediation perspective have highlighted how the actual impact of economic globalisation is mediated by institutions that include welfare regimes. Some have examined how the welfare systems of East Asian developmental states have changed and adapted since the Asian financial crisis of 1997/1998. Using Hong Kong as a case study, this article examines how the developmental state of Hong Kong mediated the impact of the global financial crisis of 2008, particularly on disadvantaged groups. Hong Kong's welfare regime has provided insufficient support to ‘non‐productive’ groups despite incidents of social crisis. The government's welfare responses have been characterised by long‐term strategies to improve the competitiveness of the economy, and short‐term measures to boost the spending power of the general public. Measures targeted at disadvantaged groups have been piecemeal and minimal. The government's approach towards crisis management after 2008 has been similar to that taken after the 1997/1998 financial crisis.     

Straddling Two Continents: Social Policy and Welfare Politics in Turkey

There has been an increasing academic interest in understanding the dynamics of social policy in the Middle East and developing a conceptual ‘model’ to account for the particular characteristics of welfare arrangements in the countries of the region. While part of this framework, Turkey represents an exceptional case due to the Europeanization processes the country is undergoing in various policy areas, including social policy. The influence of the European Union on the shape of Turkish social policy, as illustrated by the government's recent reforms in the labour market and social security domains, is hereby used to outline the position of Turkey vis‐à‐vis both the Southern European welfare regime and the Middle Eastern pattern. This article seeks to assess the dynamics of Turkish social policy in light of the country's political, and socio‐economic dynamics, as well as the external influence exerted by the EU and international financial institutions. The aim is to examine Turkish welfare arrangements in a comparative manner and consider its suitability with reference to either of the two models. Looking at major trends in social security and the labour market, the article argues for a Turkish ‘hybrid’ model embodying the characteristics of both. Subject to EU explicit pressures for reform absent elsewhere in the Middle East, the data nevertheless show that Turkey has yet to make the qualitative leap forward that could place it firmly within the Southern European welfare group.     

Public Satisfaction with the Health System and Popular Support for State Involvement in an East Asian Welfare Regime: Health Policy Legitimacy of Hong Kong

The legitimacy of social policies has gained increasing attention in the past decade, against the backdrop of fiscal austerity and retrenchment in many nations. Policy legitimacy encompasses public preferences for the underlying principles of policies and the actual outcomes as perceived by citizens. Scholarly knowledge concerning the legitimacy of health policy – a major element of modern social policy architecture – is, unfortunately, limited. This article seeks to extend the scholarly debates on health policy legitimacy from the West to Hong Kong, a member of the East Asian welfare state cluster. A bi‐dimensional definition of health policy legitimacy – encompassing both public satisfaction with the health system and the normative expectation as to the extent of state involvement in health care – is adopted. Based on analysis of data collected from a telephone survey of adult Hong Kong citizens between late 2014 and early 2015, the findings of this study demonstrate a fairly high level of satisfaction with the territory's health system, but popular support for government responsibility presents a clear residual characteristic. The study also tests the self‐interest thesis and the ideology thesis – major theoretical frameworks for explaining social policy legitimacy – in the Hong Kong context. Egalitarian ideology and trust in government are closely related to both public satisfaction with the system and popular support for governmental provision of care. However, the self‐interest thesis receives partial support. The findings are interpreted in the context of Hong Kong's health system arrangements, while implications for the territory's ongoing health policy reform are discussed.     

Globalizing Indigenous Psychology: An East Asian Form of Hierarchical Relationalism with Worldwide Implications

Globalization has changed almost every facet of life for people around the world, and today the flow of influence is no longer uni‐directional. It is argued that East Asian (and especially Chinese) societies are anchored in an indigenous form of hierarchical relationalism where social structure is produced by relational obligations of an ethical and normative nature that have slowed its traditional culture “melting into air” as prophesied by Marx. The successfully modernization of East Asia has involved hybridization, compartmentalization, and sequencing of traditional psychological features of Confucianist societies such as delay of gratification and respect for education, paternalistic leadership, filial piety, and beliefs in harmony or benevolence. Features of hierarchical relationalism are adaptable to creating niches for East Asian societies that thrive under globalization as characterized by the paradoxical coupling of economic inequality in fact with discourses of equality in principle. Moral, ethical demands for enlightened leadership constrain East Asian elites to at least attempt to protect subordinates and protect societal (rather than merely individual or familial) well‐being. A fundamental contribution of East Asia to global society may be in the articulation of how to ameliorate economic inequality using Confucian principles of hierarchical relationalism.