This book identifies the main causes of welfare state system extension, as well as the differences in welfare state system design and their consequences for human behavior and the future financial stability of the systems in place in different parts of Asia.
Providing ten in-depth country case studies from across the region, including India, Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and South Korea, as well as Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the book focuses on the situation of welfare state system development and its financing in some of the largest countries on earth. It addresses previously neglected areas for investigation, such as the causal reasons for welfare state system extension (not only in Asia, but in general), the types of social security systems and their incentive systems in place and the way they chiefly determine behavior—and thus determine the resulting social security needs.
This book will be of interest to all scholars and students of social policy, public policy, political science, sociology, finance and economics, development studies and Asian studies more broadly.
Foreword
Joe C.B. Leung
Part 1: Introduction
- Telling the Untold Story of Explosion, Stagnation and Continuation of Welfare State System Financing in Asia: An Introduction
Christian Aspalter - A Pas De Trois in Social Policy Theory: Understanding the Financing of Welfare State Systems
Christian Aspalter - Financing the Welfare State System in Russia
Markku Kivinen - Financing the Welfare State System in Turkey
Kerem Cantekin, Adem Yavuz Elveren and Ceyhun Elgin - Financing the Welfare State System in Saudi Arabia
Adel S. Aldosary, Kh. Mohammad Nahiduzzaman and Muhammad Tauhidur Rahman - Financing the Welfare State System in India
Christian Aspalter - Financing the Welfare State System in Thailand
Wannaphong Durongkaveroj - Financing the Welfare State System in Mainland China
Carmel K.M. Lee - Financing the Welfare State System in Hong Kong
Raymond K.H. Chan - Financing the Welfare State System in Macao
Michael Ka-Wai Lai, Kai-Yin Leung and Charles Tong-Lit Leung - Financing the Welfare State System in Taiwan
Hubert Liu - Financing the Welfare State System in South Korea
Jinsoo Kim and Minah Lee - Income Polarity and the End of Social Insurance: A Concluding Note
Jinsoo Kim and Christian Aspalter
Part 2: Theoretical Part
Part 3: Case Studies
Part 4: Concluding Part
Biography
Christian Aspalter is Professor of Social Policy and former Founding Head of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College in Zhuhai, China. His recent publications include Ideal Types in Comparative Social Policy (Routledge, 2020), “Welfare Regime Analysis: 30 Years in the Making” (International Social Work, 2019), The Routledge International Handbook to Welfare State Systems (Routledge, 2017), Development and Social Policy: The Win-Win Solutions of Developmental Social Policy (co-editor, Routledge, 2017), Health Care Systems in Developing Countries in Asia (co-editor, Routledge, 2017), Active Aging in Asia (co-editor, Routledge, 2015), Social Work in East Asia (Routledge, 2014), as well as Health Care Systems in Europe and Asia (coeditor, Routledge, 2012).
"As Christian Aspalter points out, the majority of the world’s population lives in Asia, but most of its welfare states are understudied. They are also rarely compared. Aspalter’s newest book, Financing Welfare States in Asia, is an ambitious and impressive effort to fill this gap. The book brings together experts on East, South and Southeast Asia as well as Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to author ten comparative case studies of welfare systems from the late 1980s to the present...Overall, the individual case studies are excellent and the comparative approach contributes greatly." Linda J. Cook, Brown University, USA.
"This is a long-awaited distinctive book on the construction and further development of Asian welfare state systems in general and welfare state system finance in particular. The inclusion of welfare state systems that is seldom found in international publications is a great bonus. While welfare states systems in developed countries are facing retrenchment, welfare state systems in Asia, under modernization and democratization pressures, witness in most cases rapid expansion. Despite the diversity in Asian development, the proposed normative theory of the developmental social policy framework offers strong appropriate reference for policymakers, and social policy teachers and students." Joe C.B. Leung, The University of Hong Kong.