New Direction in Social Policy of China: the Interaction between Social Services and Social Organizations Lijie Fang Institute of Sociology Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

中国社会科学院社会学研究所 What‘s old in social policy? 1990s: employment based social insurance system Unemployment insurance Pension insurance for employees Urban employee medical insurance : universal social security system New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme(NCMS) Urban resident medical insurance Pension for rural and urban residents The minimum standard of living

中国社会科学院社会学研究所 What‘s old in social policy? How to understand? From 1990s to the beginning of 21 st century: -- from employment based to citizen based -- both production-centered

中国社会科学院社会学研究所 The rapid increase of aging population

中国社会科学院社会学研究所 The huge group of migrates There were more than 243 million migrates in 2013.

中国社会科学院社会学研究所 Problems Problem1: The protection against economic risk is not enough in a aging society, neither to a huge amount of migrates. Problem2: The state’s supply fell short of the growing demand for social services. Problem3: As governments take more and more responsibilities of social welfare, the conflicts between governments and residents are increasing rapidly. (Strong incentives of local government to share responsibilities with other roles)

中国社会科学院社会学研究所 What’s happening now? New directions in social policy since 2008: Shifting from social security construction to social service delivery Shifting from citizen based and production centered to be combined with settlement based (in community level) Highlighting more plural participations than government’s responsibilities Begin with the capacity building of social organizations.

中国社会科学院社会学研究所 What’s happening now? What kinds of social organizations are we talking about? --Social service organizations: the one who deliver social service directly, e.g. social care organizations --Social worker organizations: whose work are aimed to organizing and enabling users. --The rural village organization: especially the one with village social workers.  Through the work of the last two types of organizations, users and residents are enabled not only to participate in the policy process, but also to cooperate to deliver services by themselves.

中国社会科学院社会学研究所 What’s happening now? The development of social service organizations In March 2013, the Chinese Government decided to relax the tight control over social service providing NGOs and relabeled them as “social organizations”. Local authorities support SOs by subsidizing them, as well as purchasing services from them. More and more local authorities also purchase services form professional social worker organizations to enable the community residents.

中国社会科学院社会学研究所 By the end of 2013, the total number of SOs reached 547 thousands, 9.6% more than the previous year.

中国社会科学院社会学研究所 Implications Welfarist incorporation refers to `a political and economic arrangement between the state and organized society, whereby selected civic organizations are invited by the state to assist in the implementation of policy’. It is distinct from the idea of corporatism (Howell,2015). The growing of competition may increase the efficiency of social services, as well as users’ rights. As the local authorities purchase more services from SOs, SOs tend to move closer to government instead of users. Along with the improvement of users’ ability, users will have deeper influence on the distribution of welfare resource.

中国社会科学院社会学研究所 Implications Social Services Local governments SOs for service delivery Local residents SOs for residents’ enabling Service Purchase Capacity Building &Service Purchase Service Delivering Enabling

中国社会科学院社会学研究所 Implications Implications beyond social services: (Innovative meaning as a New Emerging economy) Social: welfare society (beyond welfare state?) Political: grassroots civil society