Market-oriented Reform Of UK Pension System And Its Enlightenment To China

The pension system as an important component of a country’s social security system plays a significant role in the national economic development and social stability. Research on the pension system on a global scale, the UK pension system is extensively and widely studied by academic world, mainly because UK pension system has a long history and its pension system is relatively perfect. Also, previous UK pension system reforms have a profound impact on the world’s pension reform.Since the foundation of the new nation, our pension system has undergone several reforms, and the Chinese characteristics of the pension system have been basically formed. Since our country entered twenty-first Century, with the sustained and rapid economic development, health care level increases, and people’s living standards improve rapidly. Due to the continual increase of the proportion of aging population, China has already entered into the aging society. Although the rapid economic development and constantly improvement of people’s living standards, the development of China’s social security system still lags behind economic development; the imperfect factors of this system has begun to emerge, which will influence the stability of the society and the economic development. In this situation, the reform of pension system in our country has reached a very critical stage.The pension system of UK keeps balance between the state responsibility and individual responsibility. Through the introduction of market-based factors, the government gradually relieved the financial burden. The dilemma of UK pension system reforms and the solutions to the reforms plight will become priceless for China to analyze and learn from.This article is divided into six parts. The first part is to illustrate this thesis’s research background, research purpose, research significance and the present status of both at home and abroad; the second part analyses the important social security ideology in the western world and the pension theories as well; the third part introduces the framework of current UK pension system; the fourth part illustrates the history of the UK pension system; the fifth part demonstrates main UK pension system reforms from the government aspect; the sixth part analyses the current Chinese pension system. Through analyzing drawbacks in the Chinese pension system, the author tries to offer several effective proposals to the reform of Chinese pension system.