Chinese social welfare: Policies and outcomes

In: The China quarterly: an international journal for the study of China, p. 577-597

Abstract

China in the 1980s is in the midst of a social revolution as far-reaching as either land reform or the early years of the cultural revolution. The egalitarian ideals and collective solutions of the Maoist era have disappeared, and in their place is an ideology that validates individual rather than group goals, and private rather than public solutions. The article addresses the apparent contradiction of increasing welfare inequality during years of declining income inequality, arguing that the negative impact of decollectivization on social welfare programmes is the logical outcome of (1) specific principles behind Chinese welfare policies since 1950 and (2) a generally disadvantaged position for all welfare organizations in centrally planned economies. (DÜI-Sen)