Comparative Study Of The Social Security Systems In Both Urban And Rural Areas In Song Dynasty

In the history of the social security, northern and southern Song dynasties is a very important period. Because much progress was made in the aspects of disaster-relief and relieving the poor. And also it’s a hot topic in the professional field. But with the fast pace of the urbanization in song dynasty, the cities are bigger and the number of the city are larger than those in the last dynasty. On the other hand it enlarged the gap between the urban and the rural areas. The residents of the urban area usually were engaged in the commercial activity, which form a society of strangers. And mostly the government took over it. Otherwise, the residents in the rural area made a living by farming, so families lived together and knew each other very well in this society which called acquaintance society and tend to run by township government or themselves. Because of the differences, the two kinds of residents resisted the disasters differently. In order to deal with these differences, the social security system of the song dynasty is obvious difference between urban and rural areas. In recent years, there are more studies about the social security system, but there are rarely study the difference between urban and rural areas. It hinders the further research to social security system of song dynasty. In view of the differences, I hope to make up for the defect by study the difference between the both. Firstly I plan to difference between urban and rural areas of song dynasty, to introduce the administrative division, management systems and the household registration system by use the literature. Secondly studying and anglicizing the difference of urban and rural social security system. I will point out the differences between the both, and the cause of such differences. As follows:I made a brief review about the study of academic circles in recent years in the part of introduction. The study about song dynasty’s social security divided into famine and the social security. There are rich research achievements, especially my teacher Mr.Zhang; his research results of the social security system in the song dynasty help me a lot. In this paper, many explanations of these concepts which mentioned in the paper from these studies. It is necessary to combing these research results.The first chapter introduced the song dynasty’s city and the country’s administrative division, management system and the household registration system. On this basis, discuss the affect of the urbanization process in song dynasty and land privatization in country to the establishing of the social security system. Analysis the differences between the both.Chapter II introduces the system of urban social security in Song Dynasty in terms of disaster relief, social welfare, nursing the aged and young. Song Dynasty had perfect disaster relief system and welfare institution, mostly set in cities by the government. Comparatively, such institution in rural areas was much less in number and category. Hence, there is great need to introduce in details the urban social security institution and measures in order to make readers get a clear picture of the urban social security system.Chapter III introduces the system of rural social security in Song Dynasty in terms of disaster relief, social welfare, nursing the aged and young. The different rural security meansures from urban areas are the focus discussed in this chapter, for the security meansures inplemented in cities would spread to rural areas. And the rural three-layer security circle in Song Dynasty played an important role so that much analysis is devoted to this model.Chapter III does foreshadowing for following chapter IV which is the major part of my essay. I did a comparative study about the social security systems in rural and urban areas in the aspects of disaster-relief system, social welfare system and system to bring up the young and take care of the old. Analyzed the differences and how these differences occurred. The epilogue gives out the conclusion about achievement in my research based on the discussion in my essay. The differences refer to different security subjects, setting up and locating the security systems in different way, and different measures. In the view of the facts that the most studies have been made in the academic projects about the social security system focused on the urban area, great achievement has been made in this field. So the social security system in rural area was paid more weight in my essay.