• Introduction and Overview
• Government and Non-government Agencies
• Demographic and Other Social Trends
• Social Protection
• Child, Youth and Family Policy Regimes
• Maternity, Paternity, Parental, and Family Leaves
• Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)
• Child and Adolescent Health
• Housing
• Notes
• References

(Last updated September 2005)

Introduction and Overview

The People’s Republic of China (thereafter China) is situated in the eastern part of the Asian Continent on the western coast of the Pacific. With a total land area of 9.6 million square km, China is the largest country in Asia and the third largest in the world, next to Russia and Canada. With more than 1.3 billion people currently, China has been the world’s most populous country for centuries and shares a massive proportion (about 20% since 1949) of the world population. Including the capital city Beijing, there are four centrally administered municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing), 23 provinces, five autonomous regions (Guangxi, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Xizang (Tibet)), and two special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national language is Mandarin (Putonghua), which is one of the five working languages of the United Nations. The Han Chinese make up 91.9% of the population and the 55 recognized ethnic minority groups—including Zhuang, Uigur, Hui, Yi, Tibetan, Miao, Manchu, Mongol, Buyi, Korean, and others—represent the remaining 8.1%. The minority groups are eligible for some benefits including subsidies for certain foods, special consideration on national university exams, more lenient birth planning policies, and other dispensations.

China had been as a leading civilization for centuries, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences (Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 2005). In the 19th and early 20th centuries, China was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949 by the Chinese Communist Party under the leadership of Mao Zedong. The country has undergone enormous social, economic, political, and demographic changes over the past 50 years. For example, China has been one of the fastest growing economies in the world and the annual GDP growth has averaged more than 8% in the past 25 years (China Internet Information Center (CIIC), 2004; Leung, 2003). Measured on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, China in 2004 stood as the second-largest economy in the world after the US, although in per capita terms the country is still poor (CIA, 2005).

The Household Registration System

The household registration (hukou) system has been a fundamental institution of Chinese society that has crucial influences on almost all child and family policies and programs. Recognizing that extensive rural-to-urban migration would undercut the attempt to develop an urban welfare state, the Chinese government in 1955 established a registration system that classified each member of the population as having agricultural (rural) or nonagricultural (urban) household registration status with a sharp differentiation of rights and privileges and extremely stringent conditions for converting from rural to urban status (Wu & Treiman, 2004). The nonagricultural population, usually the residents in cities, has been granted greater state welfare and privileges such as full employment, public housing, free medical services, and retirement benefits, although such benefits have been reduced in the reform period (Shen & Huang, 2003; Yang, 1993). In contrast, people with agricultural household registration had to make a living with little support from the state and obtained daily necessities from their own production or from stores at higher market prices. They had no guaranteed employment, were not eligible for free government medical services, and could not enjoy retirement benefits and pension (Yang, 1993; Shen & Huang, 2003; Wang & Murie, 2000).

With the economic and social reforms since 1978, the household registration system and related social welfare and privileges for urban population and restraints for rural population have been relaxed. On the one hand, many of the welfare benefits and privileges enjoyed by city residents with urban household registration status have been cut down with the economic reform, government agency reconstruction, and the development of market economy. On the other hand, people with rural household registration status are allowed to enter the commercial channels trading their surplus products in urban markets, and to work temporarily in urban places through individual or collective contracts or work as self-employed (Yang, 1993; Riley, 2004). Recently, issues related to household registration system reform have been addressed. Policies that aim to decrease the gaps between urban and rural population and to extend welfare coverage to rural areas have been proposed and implemented in many provinces and cities such as Beijing, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Henan, Hebei, and Fujian, especially since 2000. However, these efforts of reform are still limited and some policies have been suspended because of many problems. The household registration system still remains largely in force and greatly shapes socioeconomic status and life chances of children and families. For example, children can only register at the locality where one of their parents has official registration status. Since migrant children do not have urban household registration status, most of them do not enjoy many benefits such as education even though they live or were born in the cities. Recent policies have attempted to eliminate the barriers of education for migrant children, entitling them to receive services similar to children with urban household registration status.

The One-Child Policy

Another institution that has fundamental effects on child and family well-being is the one-child policy, which has been implemented since the late 1970s. Facing a high birth rate and a falling mortality rate, China’s leaders were convinced that the economic project would fail since the rampant population growth could eat up economic gains, and in 1979, China launched its widely known one-child policy (Riley, 2004; Chow & Zhao, 1996; Attane, 2002; Yang et al., 1995; Freeman, 1998). The intention of one-child policy was to restrict the population growth rate and eventually reduce the size of population by controlling fertility through family planning, and thereby to conserve the nation’s resources to advance economic and social development (Chow & Zhao, 1996; Jowett, 1991; Fong, 2002). In 1982, fertility control and family planning became a constitutional duty of both husband and wife, and was implemented strictly nationwide (Attane, 2002). The campaign initially required that all couples have no more than one child and that couples apply for official approval before conceiving a child (Riley, 2004). However, popular resistance, especially among the peasants, forced the government to relax its most stringent rules of one-child policy. The adjustments led to a sharp rise in births and soon the policy was quickly tightened (Hutzler & Chang, 2004; Merli & Smith, 2002). In December 2001, the Law on Population and Birth Planning, the first state legislation of one-child policy, was passed and came into effect in September 2002 (Winckler, 2002; Leung, 2003). This law declares that practicing birth planning is a basic national policy of the state and the duty of citizens. It also stipulates social benefits such as employment training, health care, social insurance, poverty relief, and rewards for couples who practice birth planning, and economic and administrative penalties for those who have out-of-plan children, discriminate against or mistreat female infants or women giving birth to female infants or being infertile, or those using ultrasound technology to terminate a pregnancy for the purpose of sex selection.

Because of the vastness and diversity of China, one-child policy has been implemented primarily by local governments at province and county levels in order to accommodate local conditions. The National Population and Family Planning Commission provide overall policy directions and official indicators of the maximum completed fertility, and family planning committees at provincial and county levels enact their own self-contained family-limitation regulations, which vary greatly across localities. For example, the percentages of women who are allowed to have a second child vary from 20% to 70% of the total population across provinces (Hesketh & Zhu, 1997; Attane, 2002; Chow & Zhao, 1996; Winckler, 2002). Therefore, contrary to popular perception, the one-child policy does not always mandate one child, especially in rural and minority areas. For example, the 55 ethnic minority groups—about 91 million people—have always been exempt from the one-child policy, and some local officials in rural areas have allowed couples to have a second child if their first one is a girl, while others have allowed two children in all cases (Short, Zhai, Xu, & Yang, 2001; Bernman, 1999; Hutzler & Chang, 2004; Attane, 2002; Freeman, 1998).

The one-child policy has been effectiveness in stimulating rapid change in the fertility rate and population growth. For example, as early as 1985, about 80% to 90% of young couples in urban areas and 50% to 60% in rural areas had only one child (Yang et al., 1995). The total fertility rate (TFR) was reported to fall from an average of 5.81 children per woman in 1970 to 2.0 in 1980, 1.94 in 1984, and 1.84 in 1994 (Xu, 1999; Hesketh & Zhu, 1997; Fong, 2002). China’s crude birth rate has been halved in less than three decades, dropping from 33 to 16 per 1,000 between 1970 and 1998 (State Statistical Bureau, 1999). According to the United Nations Population Fund, China’s total population is more than 1.31 billion and growing at a rate of 0.7% a year, in contrast to India, another populous developing country in Asia, which currently has a total population of more than 1.06 billion with an annual growth rate of 1.5% (Hutzler & Chang, 2004). The birth of 300 million people has been avoided and relevant costs of 360 billion yuan[1] (about 43.4 billion US dollars) avoided (Asianinfo Daily China News, July 15, 2002).

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The China child and family-related policies are basically the responsibility of the federal government. Provincial and local governments implement federal policies and make their local policies, which are primarily consistent with the federal ones. There are specific bureaus and departments in provincial and local governments which are responsible for provincial and local child and family policies and have similar functions and responsibilities as those of corresponding ministries in federal government.

There are six major ministries in the federal government that have been involved in child and family-related polices. Ministry of Civil Affairs is responsible for disaster relief, minimum living insurance, poverty reduction activities, social welfare enterprises, child adoption policy, protecting the interests of disadvantaged such as the elderly, orphans, and “five-guarantees” (food, clothing, medical care, housing, and burial expenses) for the rural elderly and disabled who have no family support or income source. Ministry of Labor and Social Security is in charge of employment and migration policies for urban and rural population, services for the arrangement, living, and reemployment of unemployed workers, protective policies for women and youth workers, policies for elderly care, medical care, working injury, and birth insurance, and management of social insurance funding. Ministry of Personnel takes charge of labor migration and transfer from rural household registration to urban registration, and the wage system and retirement policies for employees of government and non-government institutes. Ministry of Education has the responsibilities of federal education policy making and implementation, financial management of federal education, setting standards and requirements for primary and secondary education, management of high education, general and nine-year compulsory education, supervision and assistance for education in minority areas, and reduction of illiteracy. Ministry of Health is in charge of policies related to infant, child, and woman health, health education, disease prevention, intervention in serious and epidemic diseases, management of national immunization plans, intervention of emergency public health disasters, and supervision of the implementation of public health laws and policies. Ministry of Construction is responsible for federal housing policy reform.

Some nationwide “non-government” organizations which function as de facto government institutions have important impacts on child and family policies. For example, All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) was founded in 1949 and dedicated to representing and protecting women’s rights and interests and promoting equality between men and women. It is a multi-tiered organization with local women’s federations and group members at every divisional level of government. The mission of ACWF is to educate and offer guidance to women to strengthen their self-esteem, self-confidence, self-reliance and self-improvement, and to represent women’s participation in democratic management and supervision. The China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF), a non-governmental and non-profit organization, was founded in Beijing in 1989. Its major mission includes seeking support and assistance from organizations and individuals at home and abroad who are concerned about the well-being of Chinese youth and children, and promoting education, health, and environmental protection for Chinese youth and children. CYDF is best known for launching and managing its largest program to date, “Project Hope,” which has sought to help school dropouts in poor remote regions return to school and complete at least an elementary education. By the end of 2002, Project Hope had received over 2.2 billion yuan in donations, helped 2.47 million children from poverty-stricken rural families continue their schooling, and built 9,508 Hope primary schools. China Charity Federation (CCF), officially approved in 1994, is the largest national charitable organization in Mainland China. The key tasks of CCF include raising funds for charity, developing public welfare programs for the poor and needy, assisting the government in emergency relief work including collection and allocation of both domestic and overseas donations, establishing and supporting social welfare agencies, and developing regular donation programs. The China Disabled Persons’ Federation (CDPF) is the unified national organization of and for persons with various disabilities in China. The major aim of CDPF is to promote humanitarianism, develop disability undertakings, and protect human rights of persons with disabilities so as to enable them to participate in society with equal status and opportunities.

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Demographic and Other Social Trends

China has been the world’s most populous country for centuries and contains large proportion (about 20% since 1949) of the world population. According to the official data, the total year-end population increased from 541.7 million in 1949 to 1,299.9 million in 2004, and January 6, 2005 became the official 1.3 billion population day (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2004, 2005). In the years before 1949, China’s population profile showed a high birth rate, a high death rate, and slow population growth, due to high infant mortality, widespread disease, and various wars in the 1930s and 1940s (Lee, 1992; Riley, 2004; Attane, 2002). As Figure 1 shows, the population growth has fluctuated in the more than half century period since the new regime established in Mainland China, which has been the result of social and political transformation and family planning policies. Started with a high birth rate (36‰) and high death rate (20‰), the growth rate increased steadily in the early years from 16‰ in 1949. This high rate of population growth was believed to have affected adversely maternal health and the living standard of families, and the government eased its policy toward birth control but firmly maintained its restrictions on abortion, which has been seen as the first birth planning campaign that extolled fertility control in the name of maternal and infant well-being. The total fertility rate (TFR, the number of children a woman would have assuming current age-specific birth rates) was around 6 during this period with the highest of 6.47 in 1952 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2004).

Sources: Data of 1949-1990 are based on China Statistical Yearbook 1996-2004, National Bureau of Statistics, China Statistics Press, Beijing, China; National Bureau of Statistics (2005); and China Population and Development Research Center (www.cpirc.org.cn).

Notes: Total population and population by sex include the military personnel of Chinese People's Liberation Army; the military personnel are classified as urban population in the item of population by residence.

When the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) was launched, the entire labor force was mobilized to achieve the objectives of rapid industrialization and the construction of socialism, which ended as a failure and was compounded by the 3-year natural disaster starting from 1960, in which typhoons caused floods in south China, drought caused the drying of the Yellow River, and pests infested much of the countryside (Fung, 2001; Lee, 1992). Famine ravished people in many parts of the country, and the nutrition and health standards dropped. The death rate increased dramatically and the growth rated reached to -4.57‰ in 1960. The total fertility rate fell to the lowest point of 3.29 in 1961 during the period before 1975. The death rate has decreased steadily since then. Between 1962 and 1966, the government launched its second family planning campaign, which sought to lower fertility, especially in rural areas (Riley, 2004; Attane, 2002; Lee, 1992). Fertility in some urban areas declined remarkably during this period, but the campaign had little effect on most rural areas, which were ill-equipped to provide family planning services. A period of rapid growth began again since then, as shown in Figure 1. 

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), China launched a third family planning campaign—“wan, xi, shao” (“later, longer, fewer”) in 1971, emphasizing later marriage and childbearing, longer intervals between births, and fewer births (Riley, 2004; Attane, 2002; Lee, 1992). The campaign had far wider geographic and demographic impacts than any earlier efforts. As a result, the population growth rate declined steadily in spite of the social and political chaos during this period. As indicated above, in the late 1970s, China began to adopt the open-door policy and economic reform as well as the widely known one-child policy. As shown in Figure 1, the birth and growth rates became fluctuant in this period, reaching at 23.33‰ and 16.61‰ in 1987, respectively, the highest rates since 1975. The rates of birth, death, and natural growth have been declining consistently since 1987 and reached at 12.29‰, 6.42‰, and 5.87‰ in 2004, respectively. The total fertility rate has also fallen below 2.0 since 1991 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2004) (see Introduction and Overview).

As Riley (2004) indicates, between the 1960s and the 1980s, China experienced one of the most rapid and impressive declines in fertility ever recorded in a national population. In just 15 years, the total fertility rate fell from around six children per woman to just over two. Other Asian countries—including Thailand and South Korea—have also seen dramatic fertility declines, but stretched over some 40 years. The decline is even more astonishing given China’s relatively low gross national product (GNP) and a low level of urbanization. The population is projected to grow by another 100 million by 2050, and India—with its higher fertility levels—is forecast to move ahead of China in total population size by 2035 (Riley, 2004).

Infant mortality has declined dramatically as well. The infant mortality rate fell from 139‰ (139 infant deaths per 1,000 live births) in 1954 to 38.0‰ in 1990, and 32.0 in 2000, compared to the world average of 61.3‰ in 1990 and 53.8‰ in 2000 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2002; Riley, 2004). China continues to combat infectious diseases likely to strike children, and wide-reaching immunization programs have reduced the prevalence of encephalitis, meningitis, and hepatitis (Riley, 2004). Improvements in water quality, especially in rural areas, have helped prevent intestinal diseases such as diarrhea, typhoid, and cholera that particularly affect children. Social and economic changes have played an important indirect role in reducing infant and child mortality and illness (Riley, 2004). For example, infant and child care centers are much more widely available now, especially in urban areas, which provide working women access to better child care. The birth planning program also contributed to lower infant mortality by encouraging women to wait longer between pregnancies, thus easing health demands on women and giving parents more time to care for each child.

Although the birth rate has fallen dramatically since the implementation of the one-child policy, sex ratio at birth has increased greatly. Sex ratio at birth is a comparison of the number of male and female births, and generally, 105 male births are expected for every 100 female births (Hoy, 1999). In the early 1980s, the sex ratio was normal. For example, it was 107 for first births, 105 for second, 109 for third, and 112 for the fourth and higher births (Riley, 2004). In 1989, although the ratio was normal (105) for first births, it rose progressively with each additional birth (121 for second, 125 for third, and 132 for fourth and higher); while in 2000, the estimated sex ratio for all births was 117 (Riley, 2004; Hoy, 1999). Although sex ratios at birth also increase in other regions such as Taiwan (110 for all births and 130 for fourth in 1991) and the Republic of Korea (114 for all births and 229 for fourth in 1992), the rise of gender ratio in China since the introduction of the one-child policy in 1979 has been especially of concern as it could be the consequences of under-reporting of births, infanticide, selective abortion, and abandonment because of son preference and the mandatory one-child policy (Riley, 2004; Hoy, 1999; Jowett, 1991; Fong, 2002; Hesketh & Zhu, 1997; Merli & Smith, 2002; Chow & Zhao, 1996; Watts, 2004; Hutzler & Chang, 2004).

Marriage has been nearly universal in China, especially for women. For example, studies showed that about 99% of Chinese women had been married at least once in the 1970s and 1980s (Zeng, 2000). The annual marriage registration rate had been more than 15‰ (15 marriages per 1,000 persons) from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, but fell to about 12‰ in since the beginning of 21st century (Ministry of Civil Affairs, 2005). In contrast, the national annual divorce rate increased from about 1‰ to about 2‰ during the same period and to 2.56‰ in 2004. The divorce rate is much higher in many large cities. For example, latest report showed that the divorce rate in Beijing was 6.82‰ in 2002 (Luo, 2005). Women’s average age at first marriage has also increased fairly steadily from 18.2 years in 1940 to about 23 years (24.4 years for urban women and 22.6 years for rural women) in 1979 and fell to 22.0 years in 2000 (Riley, 2004; Attane, 2002). The substantial increase in age at first marriage in the 1970s was mainly due to the impact of the emphasis put on delayed marriage in the family planning program of “Wan, Xi, Shao (later, longer, fewer)” (Zeng, 2000). The trend toward deferred marriage was reversed decisively in the early 1980s mainly due to the relaxation of the age limit at first marriage by the second Marriage Law enforced since January 1981. Although this law increased the minimum age for marriage from 20 for males and 18 for females, specified by the 1953 Marriage Law, to 22 for males and 20 for females, it prompted a turning away from late marriage, which had become the norm during the 1970s (Attane, 2002; Zeng, 2000). As a result, in 1985, the average age at first marriage had fallen to 21.4 years in the countryside and 23 years in the cities and has been around an average of 22 years in recent years.

Life expectancy at birth has also increased rapidly in the more than half century period, from 35.0 years for both sexes in 1949 to 61.0 years in 1970, 64.0 years in 1980, 68.55 years (male 66.84 and female 70.47) in 1990, and 71.40 years (male 69.63, female 73.33) in 2000, in contrast to the world average 65.3 years in 1990 and 66.5 years in 2000 (Riley, 2004; National Bureau of Statistics, 2004, 2002; World Bank Group, 2004). Adult women in China have seen more rapid gains than men thanks largely to declines in maternal mortality (Riley, 2004). Lower fertility and wider access to modern contraception have helped women avoid frequent and risky pregnancies and reduced maternal mortality.

In terms of population structure, Figure 2 shows that the percentage of 0-14 year-old children has declined since the mid-1960s (40.69% of the total population in 1964 and 20.33% in 2003), as well as the projections till 2050 (18.30%). In contrast, the percentage of the elderly (65+) has increased steadily from 3.56% in 1964 to 8.33% in 2003 and 21.30% in 2050. The annual rate of the increase of those over 60 years old averaged at 3%, which is more than three times the average rate of natural increase in the national population; while the rate for those aged 80 years old is 5.4% (Leung, 2003). One effect of such rapid aging is that dependency ratios will change, and there will be fewer young people to support the growing elderly population (Riley, 2004). Three-generation households make up between 10% and 15% of all households, but there has not been as great a shift toward nuclear families as seen in many other cultures (Riley, 2004). As one of the factors, housing shortages sometimes force young married couples to reside with their parents until separate housing can be found.

Source: Data of 1953-2003 are from or calculated based on China Statistical Yearbooks 1996-2004, National Bureau of Statistics of China, China Statistics Press, Beijing, China; data of 2010-2050 are from the estimates of Leung (2003).

In the context of economic development and household registration system reform, the increasing rural-urban migration has been a valuable source for cities to cope with their fluctuating labor demand, especially in the construction sector; it has also created an important informal service sector and thereby eased government burdens and helped cities better meet the growing demand for daily services (Yang, 1993). According to the official population survey and census, the number of rural migrants in China increased from 6.57 million in 1982 to 48.41 million in 1995 and 121.07 million in 2000 (Shen & Huang, 2003; Riley, 2004). Spatially, the migrant population has concentrated in several economically developed coastal cities or provinces in the eastern region of China such as Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shandong, and Guangdong. Recently, many rural migrants have begun to look for jobs in interior and west provinces such as Henan, Hebei, and Xinjiang. However, rural migrants without urban household registration are still not entitled to various welfare services and labor rights enjoyed by the city residents and employees with urban household registration status (Shen & Huang, 2003; Wu & Treiman, 2004; Fan, 2003). The lack of urban household registration status leaves most rural migrants few alternatives but to eventually return to their original villages. For example, it was found that 57.90% of rural migrants stayed in a destination for a period of one month to one year, 26.22% for over a year, and only 15.88% for less than a month (Shen & Huang, 2003). Consistently, rural migrants have been referred to as “temporary population,” “floating population,” or “peasant workers” by government and scholars.

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Social Protection

Unlike many other countries, the social welfare system in China is identified as the social security system. There are two distinctive stages in the history of the People’s Republic of China. During the period of 1949 when the new regime was founded and 1978 when the economic reform and open-door policy were adopted, China’s social policies were based on its planned economic system and socialist ideology with a high level of welfare benefits especially for urban residents. In 1951, the Labor Insurance Regulations (amended in 1953, 1958 and 1978) was promulgated, which included old age pensions, health insurance, workers’ compensation, paid sickness leave, maternity benefits for women and many other welfare services (Saunders & Shang, 2001; Zhu, 2002; Li, 1999). It was far beyond China’s economic capacity to implement this social insurance program comprehensively, so the government confined its coverage to the privileged employees in the urban sector and state-owned enterprises, non-profit-making agencies, and government organizations, a not uncommon strategy. In 1952, two official documents, “Measures Concerning the Treatment of Unemployment” and “Decisions on the Problems of Employment”, were invoked to correct previous mistakes of overmanning, stressing that previous arrangements for job provision had been arrived at in a crisis condition (Fung, 2001). During the period of 1958 to 1976, the entire country was mobilized by frequent political movements, including two major ones—the Great Leap Forward (1958-61) and the Great Cultural Revolution (1966-76). The social security system was disrupted during the Great Cultural Revolution. The labor insurance fund was suspended and individual enterprises had to finance their own welfare programs (Zhu, 2002).

The social security system before 1978 was characterized as a basic, egalitarian security network with high employment, high welfare and low wages (Leung, 2003). It has been conceptualized as “iron rice bowl” since it provided full and life-long employment and workers were safeguarded from the anxieties of unemployment and job seeking (Leung, 2003; Fung, 2001; Tang & Ngan, 2001). This system highly concentrated the employment, wage and labor insurance systems, and played a positive role in making comprehensive arrangements for employment, guaranteeing the livelihood of employees, and promoting economic construction and social stability at that time (IOSC, 2002). Under this social security system, the Chinese people, especially urban residents, enjoyed a high level of welfare provision and learned to be submissive to, dependant on and compliant with the benevolent rule of the government (Guan, 2000; Leung, 2003). However, the iron rice bowl was not merely an ideological adherence to the socialist quest for employment protection, but also a part of a national industrial manpower policy related to the viability and growth of the planned economy (Fung, 2001). When the economy was not able to provide enough jobs, the state did not hesitate to promote social security reform.

From 1978, particularly the mid-1980s, China began to launch its transformation to a socialist market economy. The full employment-centered and work unit-based social security generated more and more economic and social problems such as an inefficient economy, overloaded work units, unemployment, pension, and urban poverty. The iron rice bowl was widely criticized as one of the major policies leading to fiscal imbalance and economic inefficiency, because it absorbed too many financial resources, overmanned and hoarded labor especially in state-owned enterprises, and encouraged dependency and laziness in the workplace (Fung, 2001; Guan, 2000; Leung, 2003). As a result of the social, economic, and demographic factors, since 1978 the social security system reform became a component of the regime’s critical missions and began to play crucial roles in people’s daily lives. The process has been incremental and pragmatic with many experiments and pilot projects before the programs were implemented throughout the country. The state has managed to gradually reduce its responsibilities in welfare provision and allow part of the social services to be marketized, societalized, and privatized so as to disperse the welfare and financial responsibilities. Non-governmental organizations have grown fast recently and become an active player in providing community services, poverty relief, education, medical care, and other social services for disadvantaged people. Urban employment units, the major social security beneficiaries before the reform, begin to reduce their welfare responsibility, especially enterprises, and become active in pursuing their own economic and social interests on the market. Compared to the prevous situation, individuals, particularly those with urban household registration status, have to take more responsibility for their own welfare and contribute more to the social security system.

Generally, China’s current social security system includes social insurance, social welfare, the special care and placement system, social assistance/relief and housing services (Information Office of the State Council (IOSC), 2004, 2002; Zhu, 2002). As the core of the social security system, social insurance includes old-age insurance, unemployment insurance, medical insurance, work-related injury insurance and maternity insurance. The social welfare system provides funds to ensure the livelihood of senior citizens, orphans and the disabled persons in extraordinarily straitened circumstances. The special care and placement system provides materials and expresses compassion mainly for servicemen and their families. Social relief or assistance system provides the minimum standard of living for the urban and rural poor, relief to natural disaster victims, urban vagrants and beggars, and promotes and encourages all kinds of social mutual help activities. The housing security system provides services mainly for urban residents and includes the system of publicly accumulated housing funds, the system of generally affordable and functional housing, and the low-rent housing system for the purpose of improving urban residents’ housing conditions. As illustrated in Figures 3 and 4, available official data show that social insurance as a percentage of the total wage bill had increased steadily since 1978 before declining in the mid-1990s. The funds for social relief as a percentage of GDP decreased significantly in the mid-1990s, while that of unemployment insurance increased steadily since the mid-1990s.

Source: Based on the data from China Statistical Yearbooks 1996-2004, National Bureau of Statistics, China Statistics Press, Beijing, China; and China Population and Development Research Center.

As to administration and implementation, China does not yet have a national social insurance or social security law regulating social security arrangements (Zhu, 2002; Leung, 2003). The State Council has certain legislative powers under the constitution, and various departments under the State Council have the authority to adopt administrative rules, including Ministry of Civil Affairs, Ministry of Labor and Social Security, Ministry of Personnel, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Construction. As a consequence, a series of State Council decisions and provisional regulations and notices have been issued, although in an ad hoc and piecemeal fashion, to implement the proposed social security reforms. More often, provincial governments formulate detailed rules in accordance with the general principles set by the central government and in accordance with the local circumstances.

With a continuous process of reform, China has been trying to develop a pluralistic, effective and affordable social security system compatible with both a thriving market economy and a flagging socialist political structure, and become one of the few developing countries that managed to establish a comprehensive social security system (Zhu, 2002; Leung, 2003; IOSC, 2004; Guan, 2000). Chinese social policy has receded from the traditional universal model, but has not moved towards a residual model (Guan, 2000). Instead, based on the changing socio-economic environment, the government prefers to pursue a selective model to adapt the social security system to the new socialist market economic system, stimulate economic efficiency in a marketizing and globalizing environment, and maintain political stability. Problems also arise during social security reform, one of which has evoked widely—coverage (Leung, 2003; Zhu, 2002; IOSC, 2004; Guan, 2000). The target groups of most of the social policies are those with urban household registration status, especially employees in state-owned enterprises, government sector, and some public organizations, while rural residents benefit little or nothing from most social security programs. By marketizing and privatizing some social services, the social security reforms have been criticized as widening and exacerbating income disparity and social inequality (Leung, 2003; Logan, Bian, & Bian, 1999; Li, 1999; Wong, 1994). With the ongoing demographic changes and the development of a market economy especially China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in December 2001, many social problems such as aging, unemployment, and poverty will continue to challenge the social security reforms as well as the overall reform agenda of the country. The future reforms of the social security system in China are expected to solve these social problems and deal with new challenges emerged.

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Child, Youth and Family Policy Regimes

Maternity, Paternity, Parental, and Family Leaves

Several laws and regulations have been passed and enforced to protect maternity leave benefits, including Labor Insurance Act (1951), Regulation on Women Workers’ Maternity Leave (1955), Act of Protecting Female Staff and Workers (1988), Law of Protecting the Rights and Interests of Women (1992), Regulations on Maternity Insurance for Employees in Enterprise (1994), and Labor Law (1995). These laws and regulations stipulate that female staff and workers shall be entitled to no less than 90 days (based on 7 days per week) of maternity leaves for childbirth, including 15 days before childbirth. In cases of dystocia or multiple births, mothers are entitled to additional 15 days of maternity leaves. During maternity leaves, employees receive 100% of earnings paid by employers for up to 90 days for childbirth and 100% of earnings for up to 42 days in cases of abortion (Social Security Administration, 2002). Contract workers receive the same benefits as permanent workers. According to the 1998 Circular regarding Various Issues on Female Workers’ Maternity Benefit, employees giving birth are entitled to a maternity leave of 90 days and get reimbursement of their medical check-up fee, midwife fee, operational charges, hospitalization fee, and medicine costs incurred during pregnancy; women employees giving birth or having abortions should maintain their wages and positions (Zhu, 2002; IOSC, 2004).

The employer liability scheme in the maternity benefit system has existed since the early 1950s, mainly applying to government organizations, civil organizations, public institutions and some urban enterprises (Zhu, 2002; IOSC, 2004). In 1988, the state introduced a reform of the maternity insurance system in some areas (IOSC, 2004). The Experimental Measures on Maternity Insurance for Enterprise Employees was issued in 1994, which only covered urban enterprises (Zhu, 2002). According to this scheme, in most areas, the employers generally contributed 0.6% to 0.8%, but less than 1% of the total payroll to the maternity fund that was managed by the local labor and social security bureau, while individual employees did not pay the premiums (Zhu, 2002; IOSC, 2004). By the end of 2001, the pooling scheme had been adopted in 1,368 cities or counties in 27 provinces, with 33 million workers who accounted for nearly 30% of the target population (Zhu, 2002). In 2003, there were 36.55 million employees covered by maternity insurance and 360,000 employees received maternity insurance benefits (IOSC, 2004). According to the China’s Development Program for Women through the Years 2001-2010, the government had committed itself to extending maternity insurance coverage to 90% of the target population and issued the Stipulations on Maternity Insurance for Urban Workers to expand the coverage (Zhu, 2002).

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Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)

Influenced by Confucian ideology, traditionally education has been highly valued in the Chinese society due to its importance in personal development and social mobility (Wong & Pang, 2002; Wu, 1992). The well-known one-child policy has been implemented since the late 1970s. Its consequences on social and economic development, population structure, elderly care, and child and family wellbeing have been discussed widely in the media and literature. Particularly, ECEC has been influenced and shaped by the policies and consequences in economic, political, demographic, social welfare, and educational domains.

Based on the major changes in economy, politics, and demography, the development of ECEC in China may be grouped into three periods. In the first stage, the rapid increase period—war recovery and initial industrialization (1949-1957), along with the rapid growth of population and overall employment rate, the number of child care facilities increased greatly to assist working parents, particularly mothers, to concentrate on their work (Lee, 1992; Wu, 1992). For example, the number of children attending kindergarten increased from 130,000 in 1949 to 380,000 in 1951. In 1955, the Ministries of Interior, Education, and Public Health issued a unified policy statement promoting kindergartens and nurseries in rural areas, thus enabling greater female participation in production. In the cities, all factories were required to organize child care facilities and kindergartens. Even with such official determination, by 1957, there were only a million children—about 1.4% of the total preschool age children—enrolled in kindergartens, most of whom were con­centrated in coastal provinces. In the second stage, the fluctuant period—the Great Leap Forward, natural disaster, and the Cultural Revolution (1958-1977), the number of day-care facilities decreased dramatically, particularly in the rural areas (Lee, 1992). A significant number of neighborhood day-care facilities remained in the urban areas, and by 1962 the number slowly resumed the level that existed in 1957 (Lee, 1992). During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), ECEC facilities were severely curtailed as societal chaos affected the workforce and the family (Lee, 1992; Wu, 1992).

 In the third stage, the regulatory and modern development period—economic reform and the one-child policy (1978-present), although the one-child policy has been implemented during this period, the overall demand for day-care services has continuously increased (Lee, 1992). Many of the professional elite sent to the countryside for reeducation who were born in the 1950s, the first baby boom wave, were allowed to return to the cities from 1979 when they were of the marriage and childbearing age. In addition, along with the economic and social development, the increasing desire for a higher standard of living has forced many young couples to take full-time jobs and thus, out-of-home care facilities are still seen as imperative in China (Lee, 1992). For example, official statistics showed that, by 1988, about 20% of all children between 3 and 6 years old attended kindergarten; in 2003, about 20% of all children of 6 and younger enrolled in some types of kindergartens (Wu, 1992; National Bureau of Statistics, 2004). Studies further found that in 1997 the percentage of communities with any type of childcare was 27.2% and 14.4% in urban and rural areas, respectively; the percentage of children under 6 receiving care at a childcare center was only 15.9% and 2.5% in urban and rural areas, respectively (Kilburn & Datar, 2002).

The Ministry of Health issued three documents in 1980: the Regulations for Urban Day Care Work, the Preventive Health Care Sys­tems for Day Care and Kindergarten Facilities, and the Curriculum for the Early Education of Children under the Age of Three (Lee, 1992). These documents detailed the new regulations on the nature of day-care work, and the responsibilities and requirements of day-care facilities. The content of the three documents issued were essentially the regulations governing contemporary ECEC services and programs in China. In 1981, the government issued the new Guidelines for Kindergarten Education, with an im­proved version of the first issue of the guidelines for preschool education published in 1952 (Wu, 1992). After the 13th Chinese Communist Party Meeting in 1983, preschool education received new official endorsement, and policy makers and scholars began another nationwide promo­tion of quality teacher training, compilation of curriculum man­uals and textbooks for kindergartens, and research to improve the implementation of ECEC (Wu, 1992). Since 1996, the Parent-Teacher Association has become mandatory as confirmed in the Statute of Kinder­gartens, which has changed the role of parents from passively taking advice and instructions from the teachers to becoming respected, active partners of the school (Wong & Pang, 2002). In 1999, the Guiding Framework of Kindergarten Education was released by the State Education Commission, signifying yet another milestone in the development of ECEC in China (Wong & Pang, 2002). It was stated in the general principles that ECEC should be the foundation of children’s immediate and lifelong education and that kinder­gartens should promote children’s development and enable them to have a happy and meaningful childhood. West ide­ology and has inspired the forerunners of early childhood education in China at the beginning of the twentieth century, and has now returned and begun to settle in Chinese soil (Wong & Pang, 2002; Lee, 1992).

According to the Education Law of 1995, ECEC is the first and basic stage of the state school education system, followed by primary education, secondary education, and higher education (Wong & Pang, 2002). In China, ECEC in the broad sense is education for children from birth through age 6 or 7 (children begin primary schools at age 6 or 7). Most researchers divide the ECEC sector into two major types: nurseries for children under age 3 and kindergartens for children from age 3 to 6 (Wong & Pang, 2002; Lee, 1992; Wu, 1992). Nurseries are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health, while kindergartens are under the Ministry of Education. As the government and the public are now attaching more importance to education in the early years, nurseries are gradually expanding their focus of provision to education in addition to child care, and thus the Ministry of Education takes on responsibility for supervising the education component of the nurseries (Wong & Pang, 2002). Most kindergartens are full-time with three age levels, while some also operate on a one- or two-year basis. For children in the remote areas with sparse populations and poor transportation, ECEC services include residential boarding schools, mobile kindergartens, play centers, children’s activity stations, toy libraries, and touring instructional teams, and children participate in different formats, such as seasonal classes, weekend classes or mixed age groups (Wong & Pang, 2002; Freeman, 1998).

Four broad goals of ECEC have been identified in the 1996 Statute of Kindergartens (Lee, 1992; Wong & Pang, 2002; Wu, 1992; UNESCO, 2003). The first is to help children build up necessary routines in their daily activities so as to cultivate good habits and initial self-care skills. The second goal is socialization and moral education, which focuses on emotional education and the forming of good attitudes which permeate throughout children’s daily ac­tivities. The third goal is to promote the cognitive and language development of children, teaching them language and how to cultivate their personal qualities according to their individual differences. The fourth goal is to help children do physical exercises to their development of motor skills. These goals reflect how early education and the nurturing of personal qualities are highly regarded in the Chinese culture. It is during the formative years that children are brought up to be self-disciplined, emo­tionally balanced, highly moral, and personally intact, so that they become worthy members of the family, the nation, and the world (Wong & Pang, 2002).

In terms of administration and funding, due to the unbalanced development of the economy, geographical vastness, cultural and linguistic complexity, and educational limitation in the various regions, the central government has to rely on the local government to administer ECEC (Wong & Pang, 2002; Lee, 1992; UNESCO, 2003). The state sets out national guidelines for ECEC while local governments are given the autonomy to set up their own development plans and service systems and supervise the specific implementation. This diversity not only exists between provinces or urban areas and the countryside, but also within cities and municipalities. The ECEC facilities that work assiduously to implement the require­ments and regulations are honored as national models for training and emulation (UNESCO, 2003; Lee, 1992). These models have guaranteed greater support from the local government and outstanding facilities and a well-trained staff. They are open for observation to day-care workers from across the country and often run training workshops. Apparently, from the government’s point of view, setting up and supporting national models of ECEC facilities is an effective way of improving their quality.

Consistent with the policy-making and implementation mechanism, the government has always regarded ECEC as an enterprise with a strong local and public orientation, delineating the respective responsibilities of various stakeholders for the provision and funding of ECEC (Wong & Pang, 2002; UNESCO, 2003). Since ECEC is not included in the compulsory education system, government input is relatively small when compared with the other sectors. For instance, it accounted only for 1.3-1.5% of the total national education expenditure in 1996 and 1.2% in 2003 (Wong & Pang, 2002; National Bureau of Statistics, 2004). Non-state entities are to be the main providers of nurseries and kindergartens, supplemented by institutions provided by governmental bodies, enterprises and institutions, communities and individual citizens (UNESCO, 1998). Particularly, parents are expected to pay fees and share a reasonable amount of the educational cost (Wong & Pang, 2002), which account for a large percentage of family income. For example, a recent study conducted by Xu (2004) in Shanghai, China, found that the total expenditure on children of 6 and younger accounted for 39% of household income in 2004 and one of the largest costs were the tuition and miscellaneous fees of ECEC services. In addition, China has set up incentives such as tax exemptions to encourage social donations both outside and within the country, which have been an important source of funding (Wong & Pang, 2002). As shown in Figure 5, the total government expenditure on education, including higher, secondary, primary, and special education and ECEC, has fluctuated around 3.0% of GDP since the 1990s; while the expenditure on ECEC was only about 0.03-0.04% of GDP since the mid-1990s (as compared to EU and OECD standard about 5% percent of GDP).

Source: Based on the data from China Statistical Yearbook 1996-2004, National Bureau of Statistics of China, China Statistics Press, Beijing, China

The qualifications of ECEC teachers have been of concern. There was no specific qualification re­quirement for early childhood teachers before the 1900s. Since 1979, especially in the last decade, the Chinese government has devoted much effort to improving the professional training of ECEC teachers and has established an integrated professional training system with multiple forms and levels, including initial and advanced, award- and non-award-bearing, short­- or long-term, and degree and non-degree training (Wong & Pang, 2002). Before the mid-1980s, the aim of further professional training was to provide makeup courses for teachers who had not received initial training; since the late 1980s, the focus of further training has become improving teachers’ pro­fessional capacities in keeping with the demands of society. In 1989, the Statute of Kindergartens put for­ward some basic requirements for principals, teachers, child care workers, and medical staff, which were subsequently made more explicit in the Statute of Kindergartens in 1996. In 1996, the State Education Commission issued the Na­tional Requirements on Kindergarten Principals’ Duty and Qualification to ensure that administrators have the stipulated competencies for lead­ing their organizations and are held accountable for their quality. Currently, kindergarten teachers are required to be graduates of normal schools of early childhood education or above, or graduates of senior high schools with kindergarten teacher certificates acquired through qualifying examina­tions (Wong & Pang, 2002). Among the ECEC teachers, the percentage of those with higher education was 7% in 1998 and 11.8% in 2000; those graduated from secondary normal or vocational schools were 56% in 1998 and 61.2% in 2000; and the rest graduated from other schools (Wong & Pang, 2002; UNESCO, 2003).

Nevertheless, several problems have been identified regarding the professional training for ECEC teachers. For example, the insufficient financial support from the state has resulted in huge variations in the quantity and quality of ECEC programs across local authorities (Wong & Pang, 2002; Lee, 1992; UNESCO, 2003). Further, the lack of professional training and rigid standard curricula has produced many incompetent ECEC teachers who are unable to provide high-quality ECEC services. The evaluation system is ineffective in measuring the quality of ECEC programs due to the lack of suitable indicators (Wong & Pang, 2002; Lee, 1992). In addition, children who are disadvantaged in receiving ECEC should be particularly of concern. Many children in poor families or underdeveloped communities are unable to access quality ECEC services (Wu, 1992).

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Child and Adolescent Health

As indicated earlier, in the years before 1949, China’s population profile showed a high birthrate, a high death rate, and slow population growth, due to high infant mortality, widespread disease, and various wars. When established in October 1949, the new regime began to develop massive public health programs and encourage conception. Health centers for women and children were set up throughout China from the 1950s to the 1960s and new methods of child delivery were introduced to control puerperal fever and tetanus neonatorum (IOSC, 1996). As a result, the population increased rapidly, which was believed to have affected adversely maternal health and the living standard of families. Before reforms, the majority urban residents had been covered by the employment-based health insurance system, which provided full coverage of health insurance to urban employees and their children. During this period, urban health care services were mostly provided by state-run hospitals, clinics managed by the Ministry of Health or its local health bureaus, and hospitals and clinics owned and managed by large enterprises and other workplaces (Duckett, 2001; Rösner, 2004). The pre-reform health insurance system had been largely effective in urban China and contributed significantly to the improvement of various health indicators such as increase in life expectancy, and decrease in infant, child, and maternal mortality (World Bank, 1997).

From the early 1980s, the government has launched a series of health insurance reforms, including scattered piecemeal experiments in modifying the old system, mainly to reduce health insurance spending and pool risks among employees of different types of institutions or enterprises. In 1988, the Chinese government began to reform the free medical care system in government institutions and the labor protection medical care system in state-owned enterprises (IOSC, 2002). To reduce infant mortality, especially in rural areas, in the early 1990s, the Ministry of Public Health formulated the National Plan on Controlling Infection of Children’s Respiratory Tract and the Plan on Controlling Diarrhoea and implemented a series of measures, such as popularizing proper techniques, personnel training, health education and monitoring systems (IOSC, 1996). In the mid-1990s, the government launched medical insurance reform pilot projects in about 60 cities (Zhu, 2002). The Law on Maternal and Infant Health Care, enforced in June 1995, required that government to develop the maternal and infant health care services and provide necessary conditions and material aids so as to ensure that mothers and infants receive medical and health care services, especially in poor areas. In 1998, the government promulgated the Decision on Establishing the Basic Medical Insurance System for Urban Employees, which promoted a national reform of the basic medical insurance system with low benefit levels and wide coverage, cost sharing among employees, employers and the state, and a combination of social pooling with individual accounts (Zhu, 2002; IOSC, 2002, 2004). The basic medical insurance program covered all employers and employees and their children in urban areas. The minimum payment was about 10% of the average annual wage of local employees, and the maximum payment was about four times the average annual wage of local employees. The medical expenses between the minimum and maximum standards were mainly paid from the social pool fund, and individuals paid a certain proportion.

As a result of these policies and programs, child and adolescent health has been improved greatly. For example, the infant mortality rate decreased from about 200 per thousand in the early 1950s to 50.2 per thousand in 1991, 36.4 per thousand in 1995, 32.2 per thousand in 2000, and 25.5 per thousand in 2003; while the mortality rate of children under five decreased from 225 per thousand in 1960 to 61.0 per thousand, 44.5 per thousand, 39.7 per thousand, and 29.9 per thousand in respective years, in contrast to the world average rate of 197 per thousand in 1960 and 82 per thousand in 2001 (NWCCW, 2005; UNESCO, 2003; IOSC, 1996). The annual average decrease rate of the infant mortality rate was above 5% between 1950 and 1980, higher than that of developing (2.5%) and developed countries (4.6%) during the same period. In the early 1990s, the annual decrease in infant mortality was 6.50% and that of children under five years old was 5.85% (IOSC, 1996). The maternal mortality rate decreased from 88.9 per 100,000 in 1990 to 61.9 in 1995 and 51.3 in 2003. Figure 6 illustrates the trends of infant and maternal mortality rate between 1990 and 2003 at the national level.

Source: Based on the data from NWCCW (2005).

Consistently, child immunization has also improved. From the 1950s, China began to popularize the bovine vaccine and in the early 1960s, smallpox, an infectious disease seriously endangering children’s health, was eliminated. After the 1960s, China began to inoculate BCG, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, measles and poliomyelitis vaccines. In the 1970s, activities for immunization from diseases were carried out during winters and springs; and in 1978 planned immunization for children was started on a nationwide scale. In the 1980s, in response to the proposal of the WHO to expand the country’s immunization program, China unified children’s immunization procedures, initiated the system of issuing inoculation certificates, established the Specialists Committee for Planned Immunization and strengthened technical guidance for planned immunization work (IOSC, 1996). As shown in Figure 7, child immunization coverage has increased in the last two decades. For example, the coverage of Baccille Calmette Guérin (BCG) vaccine increased from 34% in 1983 to 99% in 1990, declined to 77% in 2001, and increased to 99% in 2004; the coverage of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine increased from 58% in 1983 to 97% in 1990, declined to 79% in 2001, and increased to 99% in 2004; the coverage of measles-containing vaccine (MCV) and polio (POL3) vaccine increased from about 80% in 1983 to 98% in 1990, declined to 79% in 2001, and increased to 98% in 2004. In contrast, because the program targets only high risk groups rather than all pregnant women, only 13% of pregnant women are immunized against tetanus, which is among the lowest in the developing world (UNICEF, 2001).

Source: Based on the data from WHO (2004).

Child nutrition has increased greatly as well. The government provided infant food in some areas in the early 1950s, popularized a scientific diet for children from the 1960s to the 1970s, developed supplementary food in the 1980s, and advocated breastfeeding and dietary scheme since the 1990s (IOSC, 1996). More than 90% of the salt usage has been iodized, which is particularly significant considering the size of the country and the fact that the salt industry has been largely privately managed (UNICEF, 2001). The underweight prevalence has been exceptionally low, for example, 11% in 2000 (UNICEF, 2001). Official data show that, among children under five, the rate of malnutrition dropped by 23.82% in 1995 compared to that in 1990; the incidence rate of middle to severe malnutrition was 3.09% in 2000 and 2.70% in 2003 (IOSC, 1996; NWCCW, 2005). To improve the level of child health and nutrition in rural areas, by the end of 1994, 36% of the township clinics, 29.8% of the county anti-epidemic stations and 27.7% of the county health centers for women and children had been improved (IOSC, 1996).

In the rural areas, the pre-reform community-based health financing and provision system, called the Rural Cooperative Medical System (RCMS), was an integrated part of the overall collective system for agricultural production and social services (Rösner, 2004; Zhang, 1992). By the mid-1970s, it was claimed that about 90% of China’s rural villages were covered by the RCMS scheme (Bloom & Fang, 2003; Liu, 2004). “Barefoot doctors,” peasants who received rudimentary medical training, brought preventive and basic health care to millions in rural areas (Riley, 2004). Since the economic reform in the early 1980s, the financial base of the cooperative medical system became nonexistent and thus the former RCMS collapsed. The rural health insurance coverage dropped to only 13% in 1993 and 10% in 1998 (Liu, 2004). With fewer public health subsidies, people increasingly turn to private fee-for-service medical care, services, which are concentrated in urban areas, and many rural residents, especially the poor, could not afford the dramatically increasing health care charges. For example, it is estimated that a single visit to a medical facility may cost US$20, or about 15% of an average farm worker’s yearly cash income (Riley, 2004). As a result, an estimated 90% of rural dwellers lack medical coverage in recent years, in contrast to that 90% of the rural population received at least basic health care during the 1960s and 1970s (Riley, 2004). The lack of an effective nationwide rural health care system has caused a large gap in child and maternal health between rural and urban areas. For example, in urban areas, the infant mortality rate was 17.3 per thousand in 1991, 14.2 per thousand in 1995, 11.8 per thousand in 2000, and 11.3 per thousand in 2003, in contrast to 58.0 per thousand, 41.6 per thousand, 37.0 per thousand, and 28.7 per thousand in rural areas (IOSC, 1996). In October 2002, the government finally proposed a new rural health financing policy that relies on matching funds by the central and local governments as well as household contributions. It was also proposed to upgrade village and township health center facilities. These policy plans are yet to be translated into concrete strategies and actions throughout the country.

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Housing Benefits

Before the social security system reform, under the socialist ideology, public-sector housing provision formed part of the socialist welfare system, and housing provision, especially for those state employees, was a responsibility of the state (Lee, 2000). Each work unit functioned as a self-sufficient “welfare society” within which an individual received employment and income protection, and enjoyed heavily subsidized housing and other social benefits and services. The private-rental sector was almost eliminated and the remaining private housing was mainly owner occupied mostly by those who had been living in the city before 1949 (Wang & Murie, 2000). Housing was regarded as part of the wage costs of enterprises and public-sector housing was freely distributed to employees with no charge or with extremely low rents. Housing was allocated according to a notion of need which related to the status of the household head in his or her office, rather than according to the characteristics of the family, the number of children, housing conditions, overcrowding or other considerations (Wang & Murie, 2000). The basic eligibility criteria for housing were formal urban residence and permanent employment by the institution, and then the most important factor influencing housing entitlement was official status as cadre or worker. Workers were given low priority, and the years of service completed were of principal importance. Since housing was the most heavily subsidized commodity and it related directly to the social status of the household head, the lifestyle of urban residents was determined to a large extent by the occupation of the household head (Wang & Murie, 2000; Lee, 2000).

Housing reform in China began to address the issues more generally associated with socialist housing systems: the heavy fiscal and management burden on government, poor living environments, problems of corruption and inequality in distribution and the lack of individual initiative affecting housing investment (Wang & Murie, 2000; Lee, 2000). A series of reform programs were experimented with various locations throughout the 1980s, including the sale of new housing to urban residents at construction cost (1979–81), the subsidized sale of new housing (1982–85), and the experiments with comprehensive housing reform (1986–88). In 1988, a major reform document, the Ten Year Reform Strategy, was issued (Wang & Murie, 2000). Its main objectives were to encourage urban residents to buy their houses, to formulate new housing finance arrangements and to restructure rents in the public sector. Published by the State Council in 1988, the Implementation Plan for a Gradual Housing System Reform in Cities and Towns aimed at commercializing housing according to the principles of the socialist planned market economy, including specific policies such as rent increases, introducing housing subsidies to offset the rent increase, and the sale of public-sector housing (Wang & Murie, 2000; Lee, 2000). The plan was interrupted in 1989 by economic and political issues.

In 1991, the State Council endorsed the Housing Reform Plan and encouraged cities to blend the combined effort of the publicly accumulated housing fund, rent subsidy and the issuance of housing bonds (Lee, 2000). In 1994, the Decision on Deepening the Urban Housing Reform was issued, which claimed that the state and the work unit were no longer automatically responsible for the provision of housing to meet individual housing needs and a dual housing provision system would be established: a social housing supply providing economic and comfortable housing to middle- and low-income households and a commercial housing supply for high-income families (Wang & Murie, 2000; Lee, 2000). By 1998, the traditional welfare housing policy had ceased and was mostly replaced by the real estate market. In 1999, the Regulations on Management of the Publicly Accumulated Housing Provident Fund was promulgated, and was reissued in 2002 (Zhu, 2002; IOSC, 2004; Guan, 2000). Under this regulation, both employer and employee should contribute each month at least 5% of the employee’s previous year’s average monthly wage or salary to the municipal housing provident fund (HPF). A separate account was established for each employee, who might apply for a low-interest loan from the fund and withdraw the entire balance for purchase, construction, renovation or repair of houses, or upon retirement or migration abroad, etc. Housing subsidy was provided to public-sector employees who were eligible for housing but had not been allocated a dwelling or living below the qualifying standard (Wang & Murie, 2000). Housing subsidy was paid to employees as a lump sum for his/her employment before the end of 1998 when the employee purchased a house, and since January 1999, housing subsidy has been paid monthly into the employee’s housing fund account. The amount of housing subsidy in 1999 was 66% of the employee’s standard salary (Wang & Murie, 2000).

Data show that, by the end of 2003, a total of 60.45 million employees had opened accounts for publicly accumulated housing funds, raising a total of 556.3 billion yuan, and a total of 234.3 billion yuan was granted as personal housing loans to help 3.27 million employees and their families to purchase or build houses (IOSC, 2004). Between 1949 and 1990, 1.98 billion square meters of housing were built in cities and towns: 1.73 billion square meters (87%) were built by the public and collective sectors and only 0.25 billion square meters (13%) were built by individual families (private) (Lee, 2000). The living space per capita in urban areas increased from 7.1 square meters in 1991 to 7.5 square meters in 1993 and 16 square meters in 2001 (Zhu, 2002; Lee, 2000). However, a housing shortage is still an issue for many urban residents. For example, more than 20% of the total urban population still had less than 6 square meters of living space in 1993, and more than 4 million households still faced a dire shortage of housing (Lee, 2000). In rural areas, most rural households have had free access to land for building houses, allocated by collectives based on household size, and in particular, the number of males in household. Families largely provide their own housing. The living space per capita was 18.9 square meters in 1992 (Lee, 2000).

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Notes

* Research and reported by Fuhua Zhai

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