An Analysis Of The Characteristics And Their Formation Of Present Urban Pension System In China

This qualitative study seeks to answer two related questions:1) how to describe thecharacteristics of the present urban pension system in China;2) what factors havebeen influencing pension system reform and those characteristics.The article chronicles the history of urban pension system between1949and2006,and provides a detailed analysis that compares the characteristics before reform withthat after reform. It argues that the reformed pension system has three features, whichare generalized here, as socialization, marketization and stratification, referring torespectively:1) mutual responsibilities of financing and the government’s promise ofad hoc subsidy when necessary;2) emphasis on insurance principle and marketmechanism;3) selectivity of entitlement, different responsibility and different benefitlevel among the beneficiaries. The question “is it a mixture of conservative model andliberal model identified by Gosta Esping-Andersen?” is discussed just a little, for themain interest of this article is to answer how these characteristics come into being.The study then examines the factors that are of great importance in the formation ofthose three characteristics and it employs comparison method within theoreticalframework including political economy of welfare state and comparative social policyfrom state/government-centered perspective. With review on lots of relevant literature,documents, statistical data and interview note, it concludes that the economic priorityand conservative side of welfare philosophy determines the market-orientation ofpension reform and maintain the institutional differentiation among different groups.The relatively less importance of social security than economic policy and the weaksocial rights are responsible for the marginalization of social security in policy system.The conservative side of welfare philosophy is determined by traditional welfareculture and socialist ideology and strengthened by the market-oriented reform. Otherfactors such as state structure, social response, reform consensus and so on play acomplementary role. The study findings are consistent with the increasing trendtoward increasing dominance of market ideology in pension policies both at homeand abroad.