Welfare State Systems in Japan and China: Past Changes and Future Challenges

This study shows the different developmental stages of welfare state development in Japan and Mainland China, and discusses current challenges of the welfare state systems in these two countries. It may serve as a source for comparison of social policy practices in both countries, since it reveals striking similarities in the attitude of governments of Japan and China (after 1978) towards dependency generating and potentially laziness producing social assistance programs. As White, Goodman and Kwon (1998) have correctly noticed, the Chinese welfare state system is becoming more and more similar to that of its neighboring countries. The study here may also serve for a closer look at the similarities between the 'iron rice bowl system' (tie fan wan) of Communist China and the occupational welfare system in Japan which both create exceptionally strong company-labour relationships and which both lack risk pooling and disrespect the needs of the labour market and a healthy economy because there is no firing of those workers and employees profiting from these systems. Moreover, both welfare systems cover only a very limited share of the workforce. Below, the author applied a historical case study approach. After giving a historical review of welfare state development in Japan and China, the chapter summarizes the major changes of the welfare state systems and goes on to describe the major challenges of the present and the near future.