Full Description
In many Western countries, social welfare payments are increasingly being made conditional on recipients doing voluntary work or attending job training courses, a system known as "welfare-to-work" or "workfare". Although social welfare in Asia is very different to the West, with much smaller social welfare budgets, a strong self-reliance and a much higher dependency on family networks to provide support, the workfare approach is also being adopted in many Asian countries. This is the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of how welfare reform around work is implemented in leading East Asian.
Based on the experiences of seven East Asian economies - including China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau - this book critically analyses current trends; the social, economic and political factors which lead to the implementation of workfare; compares the similarities and differences of workfare in the different polities and assesses their effectiveness.
Contents
Part 1: Introduction 1. Understanding Workfare in Western and East Asian Welfare States Part 2: Workfare in Seven East Asian Economies 2. Workfare in Mainland China: A Reaction to Welfare Dependency? 3. Workfare in Hong Kong 4. From Workfare to Cash for All: The Politics of Welfare Reform in Macau 5. Workfare in Taiwan: From Social Assistance to Unemployment Absorber 6. Workfare in Japan 7. Workfare in South Korea: Delivering Unemployment Benefits in the Developmental Welfare State 8. Workfare in Singapore Part 3: Conclusion 9. Workfare in East Asia: Development & Characteristics
