Chinese developmentalism and Nordic universalism – or the other way around? Points of convergence in Sino-Nordic income protection

Abstract

China is usually placed within the East Asian family of welfare states in the emerging literature in the field, most often denoted by the labels of ‘productivist’, ‘developmental’ or ‘Confucian’ social policy. The Nordic countries are traditionally perceived as welfare states within the universal or Social Democratic family of welfare, supposedly radically different from the East Asian countries. An in-depth conceptualization of universalism and developmentalism reveals how the welfare regime characteristics connected to these concepts are each other’s ideal-typical polar opposites. Yet, taking recent welfare reforms into account, particularly within income protection, the Nordic countries appear to be moving in a more developmental direction, while China is universalizing its welfare schemes to a certain extent. The convergence is in the end quite limited, illustrated here mainly by the fields of unemployment and pensions, but nevertheless interesting in the light of established welfare regime demarcations. A historical appraisal also reveals how the Chinese experience echoes some previous Nordic ones. While the Chinese reform process of course is and will be very different, it is greatly interesting that the Nordic experience can shed new light on current problems faced by contemporary Chinese social policy-making.

Keywords:

• China
• Nordic
• welfare regime
• income protection

Notes

^1. Estimation based on a re-calculation of average per capita disposable income (excluding transfers) to cover only wage earners (multiplying per capita disposable income by average number of dependents in each household). The numerator in this replacement rate is, of course, the flat-rate benefit of 55 RMB/month (660/year).