Socialist Insecurity: Pensions and the Politics of Uneven Development in China / Edition 1

Socialist Insecurity: Pensions and the Politics of Uneven Development in China / Edition 1

by Mark W. Frazier
ISBN-10:
0801448220
ISBN-13:
9780801448225
Pub. Date:
02/15/2010
Publisher:
Cornell University Press
ISBN-10:
0801448220
ISBN-13:
9780801448225
Pub. Date:
02/15/2010
Publisher:
Cornell University Press
Socialist Insecurity: Pensions and the Politics of Uneven Development in China / Edition 1

Socialist Insecurity: Pensions and the Politics of Uneven Development in China / Edition 1

by Mark W. Frazier

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Overview

Over the past two decades, China has rapidly increased its spending on its public pension programs, to the point that pension funding is one of the government's largest expenditures. Despite this, only about fifty million citizens—one-third of the country's population above the age of sixty—receive pensions. Combined with the growing and increasingly violent unrest over inequalities brought about by China's reform model, the escalating costs of an aging society have brought the Chinese political leadership to a critical juncture in its economic and social policies.

In Socialist Insecurity, Mark W. Frazier explores pension policy in the People's Republic of China, arguing that the government's push to expand pension and health insurance coverage to urban residents and rural migrants has not reduced, but rather reproduced, economic inequalities. He explains this apparent paradox by analyzing the decisions of the political actors responsible for pension reform: urban officials and state-owned enterprise managers. Frazier shows that China's highly decentralized pension administration both encourages the "grabbing hand" of local officials to collect large amounts of pension and other social insurance revenue and compels redistribution of these revenues to urban pensioners, a crucial political constituency.

More broadly, Socialist Insecurity shows that the inequalities of welfare policy put China in the same quandary as other large uneven developers—countries that have succeeded in achieving rapid growth but with growing economic inequalities. While most explanations of the formation and expansion of welfare states are derived from experience in today's mature welfare systems, developing countries such as China, Frazier argues, provide new terrain to explore how welfare programs evolve, who drives the process, and who sees the greatest benefit.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780801448225
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Publication date: 02/15/2010
Pages: 224
Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Mark W. Frazier is Conoco-Phillips Professor of Chinese Politics and Associate Professor, School of International and Area Studies, at the University of Oklahoma.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Local Coalitions, Uneven Growth, and National Welfare Politics
2. Pathways to Pensions
3. Resolving the Puzzles of China's Pension Reforms
4. Urban Governments, Social Insurance, and Rights to Revenue
5. How Employers Shaped China's New Welfare Regime
6. Public Opinion and Pensions/Surveys and Supplementary Tables
ConclusionAppendix: List of Interviews
References
Index

What People are Saying About This

Sarah M. Brooks

Mark W. Frazier offers an excellent contribution to research on the welfare state by thoroughly examining the factors that have shaped the unique development of China's old age pension system. This meticulously researched book shows us both the promise and peril of China's growing state role in the protection of old age income risks.

Jane Duckett

In Socialist Insecurity, Mark W. Frazier tackles an important subject: pension reform in China. The politics of pension reform are not only very important to the citizens of China but also are of great significance to the field of comparative welfare state politics. Frazier writes very well in a way that easily conveys often complex ideas.

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