Welfare Regimes and Social Policy in East Asia

In East Asia, welfare regimes are characterised by the interplay of state, market and family, shaped by rapid industrialisation, demographic shifts and Confucian legacies that emphasise filial responsibility. Countries such as Japan, South Korea and China have pursued distinct yet interrelated paths, blending productivist orientations with expanding social entitlements. Japan’s post-war model combined corporate welfare provision and universal health insurance, leading to high decommodification for pension and care services. South Korea’s welfare expansion since the 1997 financial crisis marked a shift towards social rights-based policies, including pensions, unemployment support and child allowances, though the family remains a key safety net. China’s hybrid system has evolved from state-centred provisions towards diversified insurance schemes, with market mechanisms increasingly integrated under a dual strategy of managing inequality and sustaining economic growth. Across the region, subnational variation and voluntary organisations play a growing role in service delivery, while policy feedback effects shape popular expectations and political support for further reforms. The region’s welfare regimes are neither converging towards a Western-style liberal-democratic model nor rigidly following a single East Asian template; rather, they exhibit adaptive hybridity, balancing commodification pressures with efforts to decommodify essential risks in the face of ageing populations and labour market transformation.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have analysed welfare trajectories across Asia, mapping regime change in the context of globalisation and domestic imperatives. One comprehensive analysis of welfare regimes across twenty Asian nations reveals that rather than converging on minimal market provisions or diverging into rigid typologies, many East Asian systems adopt a calibrated balance between commodification and decommodification. By applying clustering algorithms to national welfare indicators, this work identifies a flexible approach that combines social insurance expansion with selective marketisation, enabling resilience in the face of external shocks and internal inequalities. The findings suggest that this balanced regime design acts as a positive feedback mechanism, reinforcing public support for incremental social policy while preserving competitiveness. Such insights challenge conventional comparative political economy theories and highlight the distinctive, adaptive nature of East Asian welfare models.

Welfare Regimes and Social Policy in East Asia publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in welfare regimes and social policy in east asia across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Decommodification: The extent to which social policy allows individuals to maintain a livelihood without reliance on market forces.

Defamilialisation: The degree to which welfare provisions reduce individuals’ dependence on family support.

Productivist welfare: A regime orientation where social policies are primarily designed to enhance economic growth and labour productivity.

Policy feedback: The process by which existing policies shape public attitudes and future policy development.

Welfare regime: A classification of states based on their institutional arrangements for social protection, combining state, market and family roles.

References

1. Welfare regimes in Asia: convergent or divergent?. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2023).
2. Understanding Complexity in the Role of Market Forces in the Construction of a Public Cultural Service System: Evidence from 435 Children’s Libraries in China. Systems (2023).
3. How Does Automation Risk Shape Social Policy Preference? Employment Insecurity and Policy Feedback Effect in China. Social Policy and Society (2022).
4. The Less-Known History of the Voluntary Sector in an East Asian Welfare Regime: A South Korean Case. Nonprofit Policy Forum (2019).