Social Policy

The impact of reforms on social policy has been no less dramatic than on economic policy. Reforms have produced new inequalities, a dramatic rise in the disparity between welfare provision in rural and urban China and an abandonment of the compact for cradle-to-grave social welfare for the privileged industrial working class. While the reforms may have raised the standard of living for the vast majority and shifted China along the road to a market economy, the country’s policy-makers have encountered considerable problems devising policies to bridge the social transition. State and collective institutions in rural and urban China that previously carried much of the welfare burden have been dismantled and policy-makers have struggled to devise new policies and institutions to carry the burden.