How to Classify the Chinese Welfare State

Abstract

Despite its remarkable socio-economic transformations, very little has been done to classify China from a welfare-typological perspective. This scholarly project represents a case study of China in which the contemporary Chinese welfare state is analyzed by means of key welfare-regime indicators and analytical criteria in accordance with Esping-Andersen's theoretical framework (1990) for his Three Worlds typology. Analyzing China's welfare system raises interesting questions about how the Chinese welfare state evolves in the transition from a socialist to an open-market economy and, what is more, about what kind of welfare regime is emerging in China. The welfare typological analysis of the Chinese welfare state identified that the contemporary Chinese welfare state is most likely a hybrid of the Three Worlds: liberal in the sphere of healthcare, conservative-corporatist in the sphere of social insurance and social-democratic in the sphere of universal population coverage - albeit with Chinese deficiencies. Prospects of the Chinese welfare system remain an issue of great interest. The findings of this thesis offer a fertile ground for further comparative welfare state studies.