Social welfare in China has undergone various changes throughout history. The

Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of People's Republic of China is a ministry under the State Council of China which is responsible for national labor policies, standards, regulations and managing the national social security. ...

is responsible for the

social welfare system Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

. Currently the form of social welfare is in between 40-75% according to their means of production. Welfare in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

is linked to the

hukou system ''Hukou'' () is a system of household registration used in mainland China. The system itself is more properly called "''huji''" (), and has origins in ancient China; ''hukou'' is the registration of an individual in the system (''kou'' lit ...

. Those holding non-agricultural hukou status have access to a number of programs provided by the government, such as healthcare, employment, retirement pensions, housing, and education. While rural residents traditionally were expected to provide for themselves, in 2014 the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

announced reforms aimed at providing rural citizens access to historically urban social programs. In pre-1980s reform China, the

socialist state A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country, sometimes referred to as a workers' state or workers' republic, is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. The term '' communist state'' is ...

fulfilled the needs of society from cradle to grave. Child care, education, job placement, housing, subsistence, health care, and elder care were largely the responsibility of the work unit as administered through

state-owned enterprise A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the governmen ...

s and agricultural communes and collectives. As those systems disappeared or were reformed, the "

iron rice bowl "Iron rice bowl" () is a Chinese term for an occupation with guaranteed job security. The Chinese term can be compared to the similar (but not identical) English concept of a "job for life". Traditionally, people considered to have such position ...

" approach to welfare changed. Article 14 of the constitution stipulates that the state "builds and improves a welfare system that corresponds with the level of economic development. In 2004 China experienced the greatest decrease in its poorest population since 1999. People with a

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita i ...

of less than 668

renminbi The renminbi (; symbol: ¥; ISO code: CNY; abbreviation: RMB) is the official currency of the People's Republic of China and one of the world's most traded currencies, ranking as the fifth most traded currency in the world as of April 202 ...

(RMB; US$80.71) decreased by 2.9 million people or 10 percent; those with a per capita income of less than 924 RMB (US$111.64) decreased by 6.4 million people or 11.4 percent, according to statistics from the State Council’s Poverty Reduction Office. Welfare

reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement ...

s since the late 1990s have included

unemployment Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refe ...

insurance, medical insurance,

workers’ compensation Workers' compensation or workers' comp is a form of insurance providing wage replacement and medical benefits to employees injured in the course of employment in exchange for mandatory relinquishment of the employee's right to sue his or her emp ...

insurance,

maternity ] A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of ges ...

benefits, communal

pension A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...

funds, individual pension accounts,

universal health care Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized ar ...

. Furthermore, for many of the minority groups, there are some benefits available.Sautman, p. 77. Three principles are the basis for the policy: equality for national minorities, territorial autonomy, and equality for all languages and cultures. During July 2020, Beijing social security center put restrictions on the social security withholding and payment, which was allowed to be operational previously via third party organizations.

References

;Further reading
What kind of social welfare system does China need?
Economic Information Daily, June 26, 2002

External links

(

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charte ...

) {{Asia topic, Social welfare in Welfare in China Social security in China

See also

References

External links