Politics der Konstruierung des Wohlfahrtsstaates in Taiwan - das Beispiel der Alterssicherung

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the restructuring of the welfare system for old age income security in Taiwan since the 1990s that embraced a mixture of expansion, retrenchment, and consolidation, and to identify factors explaining this development. Substantial changes have taken place seen in three institutional areas, following different pathways:(1)initiation and expansion of a system similar to the basic pension system which based on various tax financed, status-differentiated old age allowance schemes targeted on people over 65 without any support of social benefits;(2)reform and retrenchment of the existing occupation-based social security system, including occupational social insurance schemes (since 1950s), public pension schemes for civil servants (since 1960s), and the mandatory occupational pension for employers (since 1984); (3) establishment of a national pension insurance system for the working-aged excluded from the occupation-based social security system mentioned above. I argue that this multi-dimensional restructuring is influenced by the interactions of three dynamic factors, namely: (1) the welfare system developed before the political transformation and its legacies; (2) the role and function of democratic elections and political parties in social interest representation; (3) the semi-presidential system for policy-making.