Despite its impressive economic growth, East Asia is facing daunting challenges in mitigating its social problems, including chronic poverty and worsening social inequality. The past decade has seen growing scholarly interest in the development of East Asian social policies not only because of the sheer size of the population and its global impact, but also due to the stark contrast between this region’s economic prosperity and the ongoing issue of severe social inequality. This book presents a collection of studies on aspects of social protection in East Asian Chinese societies, including Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Contributions by leading social policy scholars working in and on the region aim to promote scholarly understanding of the pressures facing social protection systems in East Asia, identify existing gaps and emerging social policy issues and review the effectiveness of existing programmes. The evidence presented and insights generated will promote further debate and facilitate meaningful comparative social policy studies in the region and beyond. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Asian Public Policy.

Dramatic socio-economic transformations over the last two decades have brought social policy and social welfare issues to prominence in many East Asian societies. Since the 1990s and in response to national as well as global pressure, there have been substantial developments and reforms in social policy in the region but the development paths have been uneven. Until recently, comparative analysis of East Asian social policy tends to have focused on the established welfare state of Japan and the emerging welfare regimes of four Tiger Economies. Much of the recent debate indeed preceded Chinas re-emergence onto the world economy. In this context, this Handbook brings China more fully into the contemporary social policy debates in East Asia. Organised around five themes from welfare state developments, to theories and methodologies, to current social policy issues, the Handbook presents original research from leading specialists in the fields, and provides a fresh and updated perspective to the study of social policy. Providing a comparative international approach, this Handbook will appeal to academics, researchers and students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels working in the fields of social policy, as well as policy makers and practitioners who are interested in social policy lessons from other societies.

East Asian societies and welfare systems are rapidly changing, creating an increasing need for research that can help to establish sustainable and legitimate welfare systems. This original volume considers welfare attitudes in East Asia, including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Macao, Singapore and Taiwan, using qualitative and quantitative research methods. Proposing new methods and approaches to analysing cross-national variations in welfare attitudes, it decentralises dominant European-based concepts and measurements and takes approaches that are sensitive to cultural and political trajectories and the impact of colonialism and gender. This book explores the influence of contextual and individual factors, such as family roles and values, on citizens’ welfare attitudes. It also studies social legitimacy and social bonds to understand how to design and implement sustainable welfare policies.

Focusing on social work and social service delivery, this book examines the social policies and programmes designed to address different societal issues and concerns across India and China. It focuses on gaining understanding of design and delivery of social welfare policies related to special interest groups, highlighting important contemporary challenges such as child labour, child abuse, exploitation of women, problems related to disabled people, mental health issue, illiteracy and unemployment. Offering a comparative perspective, the book considers the impact of political administration in both countries to critically assess key issues related to social welfare in two different political, economic, social, and cultural contexts.

Since the turn of the millennium, significant social, economic, political and technological transformations have brought policy issues to prominence in East Asian societies. This topical Research Agenda finds East Asian social policy at a critical juncture and analyses the driving forces that are shifting contemporary research and diverse policy responses in the region.

In this singular collection, indigenous experts describe the social welfare systems of fifteen East Asian and Pacific Island nations and locales. Vastly understudied, these lands offer key insight into the successes and failures of Western and native approaches to social work, suggesting new directions for practice and research in both local and global contexts. Combining international experiences and professional knowledge, contributors illuminate the role of history and culture in shaping the social welfare systems of Cambodia, China, Hong Kong (SAR, China), Indonesia, Malaysia, the Micronesian region (including the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam [Unincorporated Territory, U.S.A.], Marshall Islands, Northern Mariana Islands [Commonwealth, U.S.A.], and Palau), Samoa and American Samoa (Unincorporated Territory, U.S.A.), South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. The contributors link the values and issues that concern populaces most to the development of social work practice, policy, and research. Sharlene B. C. L. Furuto then conducts a comparative analysis of the essays including their data and social service programs, highlighting the similarities and differences between the evolution of social welfare in these nations and locales. She contrasts their indigenous approaches, the responses of governments and NGOs to social issues, the availability of social work education, as well as API models, paradigms, and templates, and the overall status of the social work profession. Furuto also adds a chapter comparing the distinct social welfare systems of Samoa and American Samoa. The only volume to focus exclusively on social welfare in East Asia and the Pacific, this anthology holds immense value for practitioners and researchers eager for global perspectives.

This book looks at the role of social policy and particularly social security in addressing the ongoing challenge of poverty in East Asia despite the region’s spectacular experience of economic growth in decent decades. The East Asian miracle resulted over the last four decades in a transformation of the region’s traditional agrarian economies and significant increases in standards of living for many ordinary people. Even though it was given little attention, poverty has remained an ongoing problem. The problem became particularly evident however with the Asian financial crisis of 1997 when many low income and middle class workers became unemployed. As a result of this crisis, the need for effective social policies and social security programs were recognized. The idea that economic growth would solve the problem of poverty was increasingly challenged. Even in China today, where rapid growth has created new employment opportunities and the promise of prosperity for many, the government has recognized that the problem of poverty cannot be addressed only through economic growth but that comprehensive social policies must be formulated, and this includes the development of an effective security system.

This fully updated and expanded edition of the bestselling Student’s Companion to Social Policy charts the latest developments, research, challenges, and controversies in the field in a concise, authoritative format. Provides students with the analytical base from which to investigate and evaluate key concepts, perspectives, policies, and outcomes at national and international levels Features a new section on devolution and social policy in the UK; enhanced discussion of international and comparative issues; and new coverage of ‘nudge’-based policies, austerity politics, sustainable welfare, working age conditionality, social movements, policy learning and transfer, and social policy in the BRIC countries Offers essential information for anyone studying social policy, from undergraduates on introductory courses to those pursuing postgraduate or professional programmes Accompanied by updated online resources to support independent learning and skill development with chapter overviews, study questions, guides to key sources and career opportunities, a key term glossary, and more Written by a team of experts working at the forefront of social policy

Comparative social policy has long neglected welfare development in Asia. Not much is known about social welfare in the economically successful East Asian tigers (Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan). They are late starters in social welfare but each has its own trajectory of welfare development. Despite the presence of extensive social welfare, they have shied away from western-style welfare states. The presence of strong developmental states and their development ethos explain in large part the underdevelopment of state welfare.

This book presents the welfare regime of societies of Chinese heritage as a liminal space where religious and state authorities compete with each other for legitimacy. It offers a path-breaking perspective on relations between religion and state in East Asia, presenting how the governments of industrial societies try to harness the human resources of religious associations to assist in the delivery of social services. The book provides background to the intermingling of Buddhism and the state prior to 1949; and the continuation of that intertwinement in Taiwan and in other societies where live many people of Chinese heritage since then. The main contribution of this work is its detailed account of Buddhist philanthropy as viewed from the perspectives of the state, civil society, and Buddhists. This book will appeal to academics in social sciences and humanities and broader audiences interested by the social role of religions, charity, and NGOs, in social policy implementation. It explores why governments turn to Buddhist followers and their leaders and presents a detailed view of Buddhist philanthropy. This book contributes to our understanding of secularity in non-Western societies, as influenced by religions other than Christianity.