Dismantling the 'Iron Rice Bowl': Welfare Reforms in the People's Republic of China.

The article describes the transformation of social policy in China and the trends of welfare development. In common with most countries in the world, China is facing an increasing demand for welfare. The free-market economic reforms of the last decade have dramatically transformed social policy in China, which is gradually retreating from an egalitarian and collective approach and moving towards a pluralistic and "residual" orientation. In China, welfare development is affected by three interacting factors; historical legacies, socialist ideology and the process of economic modernization. When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power in 1949, Mao Zedong tried to introduce a socialist system which was partly rooted in traditional Chinese culture and partly reflected influences from the Soviet Union. With high priority given to economic growth, the CCP denounced the "iron rice bowl" system of welfare as an impediment to improvement in work incentives, efficiency and productivity. Under the slogan of "dismantling the iron rice bowl," major welfare reforms were introduced in the 1980s. This article serves to describe the transformation process and delineate the trends of welfare development.