A Study Of Building Rural Social Assistance System

The number of countryside people in absolute poverty was 26,100,000 in China in 2004 and that of low income countryside people was 49,770,000. There are 11,600,000 people who have got periodic assistance of several kinds (including minimum living security and assistance of the poorest) and 20,090,000 people who have got temporary assistance. But the people who need assistance are much more than that and there is a long way to go, compared with the target that covers all people who need minimum living security in cities and towns. The issue of social security in countryside has not been paid full attention to and the weak in countryside are experiencing unfairness of social assistance policy though the government has begun to attach importance to social assistance in countryside. Proceeding from poverty in countryside, the paper reviews the history of social assistance and analyzes the current condition and existing problems; based on the concepts of social equality and social harmony, the paper puts forward theoretic foundation, and basic rules for designing the system of rural social assistance. The author thinks that the system of rural social assistance should include 5 sub-systems of principle building, fund guarantee, operation mechanism, management and service, supervision and check, thus designing a basic frame for rural social assistance. Taking Zhuzhou for an example, the author raises the ideas and countermeasures for building rural social assistance system in Zhuzhou in the hope of providing guidance to the system building of social assistance in Zhuzhou by analyzing rural poverty, current condition and problems of social assistance in Zhuzhou countryside.