Study On Shanghai Maternity Insurance Integration

Maternity insurance, as a social insurance which is designed to protect basic right of women and to reflect social value of giving birth, has been put in more and more attention and concern from the People’s Congress, government administrative departments and all stakeholders, not less than other social insurance such as pension and medical.Since new China establishment, Chinese maternity insurance system has improved dramatically, but still is severely fragmental, as is pension and medical insurance system, and women are appealing at higher and higher voice for equal right for maternity insurance. In Part VII of speech from the Communist Party18th Conference, it was proposed "to coordinate and propel building social assurance system in urban and rural areas" and to push the urban-rural-integration to a higher level, which clearly proposed "to integrate basic pension and medical insurance system for urban and rural people". The maternity insurance is one of the five social insurances; in November2012, China People Assurance Ministry issued Maternity Insurance Methodology (Exposure Draft), from which it is illustrated that government is taking maternity insurance very seriously, and that the study on integration of this insurance is very important. As compared to other countries, China is very different in these ways:1, high population radix and high maternity women population;2, high control on maternity insurance fund due to China One-Child Policy;3, fragmentation due to China household registration system and social duality structure. Based on this, China has to find a way to accommodate to own development requirement.Shanghai began on building maternity insurance system comparably later than other areas; since the first issue of Shanghai Maternity Insurance Methodology in2001, there have been four amendments, focusing on expanding scope and improving insurance benefit. Currently severe fragmentation exists in Shanghai maternity insurance system; whether urban registration or rural registration, or even external registration, whether permanent employment or part-time employment, and the difference in employers or benefit of employers, all impose impact on the insurance benefit that women are having. Therefore, it is crucial to deeply analyze and study Shanghai maternity insurance system, to locate the root cause of the fragmentation and propose according countermeasure, to eliminate the fragmentation, and finally to reduce the inequity.Firstly, this thesis will introduce concept of maternity insurance, and will describe its development in China, as well as present theory evolution and viewpoint from professional scholars. Secondly, this thesis will describe development of Shanghai urban-rural maternal insurance methodology since its first release, and will analyze and study the policy focusing on its system target, system deployment and system implementation; especially demonstrate the fragmentation in respective of household registration, employment and policy implementation. Main focus will be the problem in the system. Finally, targeted countermeasures will be proposed to deal with the phenomenon of fragmentation, in order to be able to provide reference suggestion for better Shanghai maternity insurance scheme, and to expand beneficiary scope and provide benefit to maternity women.