Research On Allocation Of Government Responsibility In Social Security

In recent years, things like the reform of endowment insurance in the government and institution, the gap of the old age pension, delaying retirement age, and the retired paying for their basic medical insurance show the fact that social security has gradually become a hot spot in the society, which also causes heat discussion among people. Some people even hold the view of omnipotent insurance which means the government should meet all the needs of people without limitations. And some other people are against the insurance system holding that individuals should take responsibility for themselves. Both of these two wrong opinions are rooted in our vague social security concepts, in other words, the lack of social security theory. In addition, our government does not have a clear understanding of its role in the limitation of its responsibilities. Nowadays, China is in a transitional period when the social security is still in a construction phrase with a lot of problems. Therefore, the leading government has to take its due abilities in social security.This thesis aims to analyze the complexity of government’s responsibilities in our social security with the help of national statistics and policy documents under the institution frame and based on the government legitimate theory, governance and good governance theory. The complexity of government’s responsibilities, specifically, are embodied in social security projects settings and the responsibility allocation of the government in charge of the social security settings which includes the relationship between different government departments, the relationship between different levels of government and the relationship between the government and the other liable subjects.The study shows that since 1949, the government responsibility in social security undergoes a process from emphasizing work unit responsibility, individual and family responsibility to an attempt on rational government responsibility.Due to the complexity of social security projects from a wide variety of fields, the diversity and multiplicity of functional departments’ responsibilities together with the high population mobility, the implementation of social security is facing great challenges. It has the advantages of professional management, promoting competition, high efficiency and low cost for different departments to play different roles in social security, which is beneficial to the implementation of social security. However, different departments tend to have the problems of unclear responsibility boundary, profits games and information obstruct. These problems can cause many disadvantages like overlapping functions, incomplete system coverage, seeking benefits while avoiding loss between departments and etc, which finally lead to the loss of fair and efficiency in the process of policy formulation and implementation. According to Chinese administrative model, the government has five levels, and there is game and obstruct between different levels which causes the government make a balance between centralized control and decentralized authorization in social security.In the process of providing social security and related services, market, society and family all have their strengths and weaknesses.Besides the government and public institutions, market, society and family can also be used as helpful means to realize government responsibility.In the process of public management, the government should address the relationship well between different departments and between different levels of government to settle the problems of interest game and information obstruct. Specifically, the government has to balance the competition and cooperation relationship between different departments, break interest game and obstruct between them and enhance cooperation of all departments. Furthermore, due to the fact that different department responsibility can promote the competition between departments and the fact that professional management can increase efficiency, the government should take advantage of them to reduce or avoid those problems, such as unclear responsibility boundary, profits games and etc. Vertically, the government should weigh the centralization and decentralization between superior-subordinate governments, divide the rights and obligations relations reasonably and define financial and administration responsibilities reasonably to make sure the supplies of public goods can be economical, effective, efficient and fair. At the same time, not only the top-down path but also the bottom-up path should be attached importance in the process of institutional reform. For the supplies of public goods and related services, the government should perform its responsibilities with other subjects, like market, society and family. All subjects should cooperate with each other and be given full play to supervise and guarantee the efficient supplies of public goods and good services. What’s more, on one hand, the government should try to achieve good governance and guarantee the fairness, efficiency and pertinence of public goods supplies. And on the other hand, the government should also pay attention to economical governance to avoid the heavy burden of addressing all the problems itself.