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Previous studies of East Asian welfare regimes focus on similarities between social security schemes. In contrast, this paper explores cross-national variations in public–private pension mixes in six welfare states: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Our research echoes the pension policy analysis of international organisations but takes a step forward with emphasis on the historical and institutional characteristics of the respective pension systems. The analysis identifies three institutional patterns. First, the statist pension system (Taiwan and China) primarily relies on public pensions to provide old-age security, with private pensions playing a rather minor role. Second, in the dualist pension system (Japan and Korea) both public and private pensions work in parallel to ensure retirement income, though a clear security gap exists between workers in the formal and informal economies. Finally, the individualist pension system (Hong Kong and Singapore) is characterised by genuine fully funded individual accounts, emphasising citizens' own responsibilities for ensuring old-age security. These three types of pension systems demonstrate distinct institutional characteristics and policy outcomes, illustrated by the juxtaposition of their institutional structures as well as by the comparison of key indicators collected from government reports and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development statistics. The paper concludes with a theoretical reflection of East Asian pension policies and a diagnosis of the distinct challenges confronted by each of the various pension patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Provide a comprehensive overview of the solidarity in health and long-term care sectors. • The overall direction of reforms is developing toward universal coverage. • Reforms might be possible without overall consensus on solidarity. • The pay-as-you-go financial arrangements will require strong intergenerational solidarity. • The capacity of informal caregiving of family could be considered. Different from the development of health sector, there are significant variations in the underpinnings and formation timings of solidarity-based long-term care (LTC) systems. This paper compares the historical developmental trajectories and identifies factors of the transitions of the actual practices of solidarity - the scope of community, the scope of interdependence, and the costs of joint action - in the health and LTC sectors in four East Asian countries: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. Comparative policy analysis. Healthcare tends to be considered a universal value such that its boundary should include all residents, while LTC is closer to an entitlement of citizens. The differing solidarity reflects path dependency as well as historical legacies and policy diffusion between the health and LTC sectors. In both health and LTC sectors, the costs involved in collective service provision are not distributed evenly between generations. Centralized governance is a prevailing feature of health and LTC sectors in East Asia, allowing solidarity-based institutional arrangements to be established without an overall sense of solidarity. The relationship between solidarity and health and LTC systems is complex and dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines generalized trust and trust in institutions in Confucian Asia, covering six countries namely, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, and one dependent region, Hong Kong. Using data from the 2006 AsiaBarometer Survey, our study affirms the reliability and validity of using a two-item scale to measure generalized trust. Our analysis suggests that due to demographic differences, there are variations in the level of generalized trust of countries in Confucian Asia, despite the fact that these societies share a similar background in Confucian philosophy. The relationships between generalized trust and political trust, and between generalized trust and trust in public institutions, are weak but positive. The positive relationship between generalized trust and trust in economic institutions is only significant for some of the economies, while trust in international institutions has the weakest relationship with generalized trust for all societies. We conclude the paper with research implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]