Liu, T and Sun, L (2016) Pension Reform in China. Journal of Aging & Social Policy, 28 (1). pp. 15-28. ISSN 0895-9420
Abstract
This article analyzes China’s pension arrangement and notes that China has recently established a universal non-contributory pension plan covering urban non-employed workers and all rural residents, combined with the pension plan covering urban employees already in place. Further, in the latest reform, China has discontinued the special pension plan for civil servants and integrated this privileged welfare class into the urban old-age pension insurance program. With these steps, China has achieved a degree of universalism and integration of its pension arrangement unprecedented in the non-Western world. Despite this radical pension transformation strategy, we argue that the current Chinese pension arrangement represents a case of “incomplete” universalism. First, its benefit level is low. Moreover, the benefit level varies from region to region. Finally, universalism in rural China has been undermined due to the existence of the “policy bundle.” Additionally, we argue that the 2015 pension reform has created a situation in which the stratification of Chinese pension arrangements has been “flattened,” even though it remains stratified to some extent.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 Tao Liu and Li Sun. Published with license by Taylor & Francis. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. |
Keywords: | Aging society, China, old-age pension, stratification, universalism |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Sociology and Social Policy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 27 Mar 2018 12:43 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 21:14 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/08959420.2016.1111725 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:127154 |