Inter-Regional Competition in Retirement Benefit Growth — The Role of the Sub-National Government in Authoritarian China
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12422288 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jing Lin (0000-0003-4854-6769, Syracuse University, corresponding author), A Dale Tussing (Syracuse University) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue | 105 |
| Pages | 434-451 |
| Publication date | 2016-11-08 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Contemporary China (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1067-0564 • E-ISSN: 1469-9400 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/10670564.2016.1245892 |
| OpenAlex | W2553465411 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
After the Chinese central government announced a policy of raising retirement benefits in 2005, there ensued a race to the top in pension benefit growth among its 31 provincial units. This study seeks to explain how this seemingly unusual nationwide social welfare expansion came about in authoritarian China. It helps to open up the black box of mysterious Chinese politics. The study highlights the roles of sub-national governments in decentralized Chinese social welfare policymaking. Instead of treating authoritarian rulers as unitary actors, this study looks into the interplay of center and provinces in a decentralized authoritarian political system. Compared with the center, provinces have traditionally been more reluctant to devote economic resources to social welfare. To motivate provincial governments to implement a policy of increased benefits, the center granted fiscal subsidies to certain provinces. This special subsidy program had three effects: (1) it reduced the provincial costs of the benefit increase; (2) it elevated the center’s annual fiscal transfer base for subsidized provincial governments beyond the current year, into the future; and (3) it increased disposable personal income, a key indicator of local government officials’ political merits in the cadre evaluation system. Inter-provincial competition in raising retirement benefits is explained, first, by provinces’ desires to earn greater fiscal subsidies from the center; and, second, by the efforts of those provinces which did not receive the subsidies to keep their benefit levels up with the levels of those which did. The result of the center’s subsidy program was not only a rise in pension levels, but also an increase in inter-regional social welfare disparities. The central government, perhaps alarmed by the consequences of its policy, acted to bring the rapid expansion of pension levels to an apparent end in 2016
Authoritarianism · Central government · China · Competition (biology · Democracy · Development economics · Economic growth · Economic policy · Economics · Government (linguistics · Local government · Market economy · Political science · Politics · Subsidy · Welfare · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Public Administration · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Contentious Origins of Authoritarian Social Protection
The sustainability of China’s Urban Employees’ Pension Programme
Toward an inclusive system for informal workers? Diverging impacts of labor informality on Chinese workers’ pension enrollment
Welfare developmentalism with interactive central–local relations
Central-local relations, accountability, and defensive administration
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |