Shifting dynamics of the welfare politics in Taiwan: from income maintenance to labour protection

Abstract

Welfare expansion in Taiwan during the 1990s was driven by the democratization that focused on provision of social insurance to the marginalized population groups. Since the late 1990s, however, the dynamics of welfare reform has gradually shifted to tackling new social risks emerging from economic globalization and labour market changes. This article analyzes these structural changes and the relevant institutional features of labour market policies. It shows the intensive engagement of the Taiwanese welfare state with labour protection in the domains of unemployment assistance, employment activation, and collective bargaining. Furthermore, the rise of atypical work has equally caused wide concern regarding its low wage income and insufficient social protection, triggering debates about what policy measures can effectively tackle the problem of working poor. The changing nature of welfare politics in Taiwan requires the scholarship of the East Asian welfare state to rethink, both theoretically and empirically, the adequacy of the ‘developmental’ thesis that is used to characterize social policy development in this region.

Keywords:

• Developmentalism
• labour market
• welfare reform
• Taiwan

Notes

1.Information accessed at the website of the Council of Labour Affairs at http://laws.cla.gov.tw/eng/.

2.Information accessed at the website of the Bureau of Employment and Vocational Training at http://www.evta.gov.tw.

3.In this case, a worker can also choose to have his/her pension entitlements in Labour Insurance accredited in the National Pension Insurance or vice versa.

4.Although the new scheme carries the title ‘National Pension Insurance’, it covers in fact only the peasants and socially disadvantaged groups such as the unemployed workers and housewives. Later the peasants were separated out of the scheme and relocated to the Peasant Insurance scheme.

5.The number of trade unions has steadily fallen from 1190 in 1996 to 890 in 2010, and union density (in terms of those who belong to unions as a percentage of those eligible to join) has declined from 44.6% to 37.3% in the same period. Information available at the website of the Council of Labour Affairs at http://statdb.cla.gov.tw/html/mon/rptmenumon.htm.

6.Information is also available at the website of the Council of Labour Affairs at http://www.cla.gov.tw.

7.Declaration of the Taiwanese Labour Right Association on 14 July 2010.

8.The female labour participation rate in Taiwan was 49.89% in 2010, the highest rate in the post-war era. However, the rate of re-employment after marriage or parental leave remains low.

9.Further information is available at the website of the Commission on Women's Rights Promotion at http://cwrp.moi.gov.tw/index.aspx.