PENSIONS IN THE CHINESE COMMUNITY

Abstract

This thesis investigates and compares the development and characteristics of thepension systems in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. It uses a policy index tocompare the inputs of these four pension systems as well as their social outputs.The thesis starts by reviewing the ancient Chinese welfare and political ideologies andpractices and the Western welfare ideologies and regimes to discover the core valuesbehind the Chinese Community pensions. Four country case studies examine thedevelopment and performance of these state pension schemes in the context of thefamily support system and demographic trends. They explore the sustainability ofpension provisions, the adequacy of public pensions, personal and private sources ofretirement income. The problems of these four pension provisions are thus revealed.The policy index constructed through the radar chart and Surface Measure of OverallPerformance (SMOP) approaches is used to compare the performances of these fourpension systems on policy inputs and socialoutputs.The conclusion of the research is that Confucianism and capitalism integrate into a newpaternalism through the patriarchal values they share and which dominate the ChineseCommunity nowadays. But the features of these four pension systems vary due to thedifferent political, historical, economic and social contexts of each state. The findingsshow that none of these pension provisions can effectively prevent elderly people frompoverty in old age. They all rely on personal social security responsibility and thecontinuation of the family support system. This thesis concludes that all these stateslack a needs-based basic pension system to secure retirees’ income level.