Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

To cope with population ageing and unsustainable family eldercare, China has pursued the route of “socialisation of social welfare” to encourage non-state provision of institutional eldercare services. The paper aims to understand the development from public to pluralistic provision of institutional eldercare, by conducting a thematic and conceptual analysis of official policy documents generated by the central government from 1949 to 2017. Three stages of policy development could be identified according to ideational factors and policy scopes. (1) During the 1950s and the 1970s, institutional eldercare was largely part of a social assistance programme rather than a policy area in its own right. The destitute, regardless of their ages, could live either in state welfare institutions at the full expense of the government or at their own home with cash benefits. (2) The 1980s and the 1990s witnessed increasing academic and policy discussions about “socialisation of social welfare”, i.e. pluralistic provision of social welfare including institutional eldercare. However, concrete policies that helped to translate the idea of socialisation into practice remained scarce. (3) In late 1999, China National Working Commission on Ageing was established as a new advisory coordinating organization under the State Council. The move marked an official recognition of the new social risk of ageing in China, embarking on extensive policy issuance— including tax reduction, lower utility charges, government subsidies based on facility construction and operation, etc.— to create favourable policy environment for further social innovation of non-state actors.