On The Reconstruction Of China's Rural Social Old-age Security System

The rural elderly-supporting form always correlates with the economic development, social institutions and culture at a certain time. In the natural economy, as the productive force level was lower, while the land resources were richer, it was natural to arrange economy on the basis of family. Therefore, family was a self-supporting economic unit, and the dominating family form was the extended family. Accordingly, the established elderly-support form in the countryside was family elderly-support. Apart from that, the traditional reproduction notion and culture of respecting the elderly, such as"the more sons, the more blessings"or"to bring up children for the purpose of being looked after in old age", had provided a solid foundation for supporting the elderly within family. With the establishment of socialism institution in China began the planned economy period. Collective economy substituted family economy as the dominant economic form in the countryside. Correspondingly, collectivity took over the support for certain elderly from family, for instance, those who are disabled, who are without a source of neither income nor family for support. Specifically, these people enjoyed the five guarantees: guaranteed food, clothing, medical care, housing and burial expenses. However, since the economic development level was low, for the rest farmers, support was still on the shoulders of family. Family gained income for elderly-support through taking part in collective work. Since reform and opening to the outside world, market economy has gradually come into being. In accordance with such social transformation, the elderly-support security form has also changed. Thus began the exploring period for a suitable elderly-support pension arrangement in the rural China. It is a diversified and institutionalized system. The five-guarantee support system has improved while social old-age pension in the countryside has been tentatively carried out nationally. Rewards as encouragement for rural families with only children or two girls have also set up. Farmers have involved in the social pension in some districts, cities or provinces. Besides regular relief of fixed amount, the central government has also grant occasional relief payment to those rural families in exceptional poverty. Likewise, system for ensuring a minimum standard of living in the countryside is undergoing testing. Nevertheless, the major rural elderly-support form is still family support. Apart from that, non-institutional arrangement for the elderly-support model is facing serious challenges and hard to undertake elderly-support in the countryside. With the accelerating of population ageing, the aged-population tendency in the countryside is increasing, so, the rural elderly-support demands are boosting. The family support function is weakening as the result of work force transfer, the miniaturization of family size and the decrease of agricultural acreage per capita. Furthermore, the aggrandizement of agricultural operating risk has jeopardized the economic brace for family support. From bad to worse, the experimental social old-age pension in the countryside carried out since 1991 has exposed some serious problems both in design and in operation. In design, the present rural social old-age pension lacks the necessary sociality, the institutional stability and unity for a proper social security system. And funds are difficult to achieve inflation-proofing and appreciation, therefore, the security function is rather weak. In practice, fund management is not standardized, and as a result, the operational fee exceeds the income. Moreover, multi-formed insurance exist at the same time and each goes its own way. These issues mean, the present social old-age pension in the countryside neither possesses the essence nor can it function as a proper social elderly-support security. As the non-institutionally arranged family support is facing serious challenges and the present social old-age pension in the countryside involves many serious problems hard to amend automatically, it has become an inevitable choice for the rural China to solve elderly-support through standardized social security system. Obviously, it is also the primary outlet for coming out predicament of elderly-support in rural China. The pith for rural elderly-support security system is social old-age insurance in the countryside. As a formal institutional arrangement, it should be stable, embody income social redistribution and stress the function of state. So, the reconstruction of such a system should adhere to the following principles: legislation first, so as to ensure there are laws for the system to go by; in charged of mainly by the government, so as to reflect the sociality of the system; checks and balances, so as to defend fund risk; junction, so as the rural and urban security systems can join together. The specific tasks are to establish a state-predominated rural elderly-support insurance, to introduce support within family through the combination of family support and community support, to extend measures such as community support and experiment organization support. Thus, on the one hand, a proper social security system for the elderly-support in the countryside can be established. On the other hand, family resource and social resource can be integrated into the social elderly-support security system. Such a system is built on the foundation of family support, strutted by social pension, relied on community support and supplemented by other support forms. If we can keep on striving, within in 20-30 years, we can set up a more perfect rural social elderly-support security system before the coming of the aging peak of population.