Analysis And Research Of Taiwan Pension System Change

The pension insurance system is an important mean to evaluate the maturity of a society. Normally, the development of the pension system in a country or region is always determined by the social progress of this area. Meanwhile, we also have to acknowledge that the pension system in any countries are also highly affected by the political, economic and cultural factors. Thus, there could a lot benefits if we are able to study the changing process of a nation’s endowment insurance system。Firstly, this study would mainly focus on introducing and summarizing the three stages of the development of the pension insurance system in Taiwan. Secondly, by referencing the theories from Northrop, the representative scholar of the New Institutional Economics, we could analyze the changing process of the endowment insurance system in Taiwan in different angles, such as politics, economy and culture. Based on these analyses, we could conclude the characteristics of the endowment insurance system in Taiwan. At last, the "purpose mode" of the endowment system in Taiwan could be revealed by this research, so we could have an opportunity to interpret this "purpose mode" in details.In order to analyze the changes of endowment insurance system in Taiwan, I mainly use qualitative research methods. Based on the related data, documents and interviews I obtained and cataloged during the information-collecting stage, I deem that the "path-dependent theory" could explain the changes of endowment insurance system in Taiwan in a comprehensive perspective.In Taiwan, the mode of endowment has already been transformed from the stage of traditional family pension to the stage of national security, and now Taiwanese government has already constructed the modern endowment insurance system. This change of endowment insurance system in Taiwan is highly related to the opening policy of economy, political democratization and the diversity of culture. It is notable that the political democratization in Taiwan has exert a far-reaching impact on the endowment insurance system. Influenced by this process of democratization, nowadays the government in Taiwan has developed a sophisticated insurance system which mainly based on the system of "national pension" and the private pension, pension supplemented by military and government, farmers and other types of groups insurance system. Hence, these different kinds of pension system have constituted the current "multiple-coverage" insurance in Taiwan.There are three conclusions of my research to the Taiwanese pension system. Firstly, the foundation of the contemporary Taiwanese pension system is the endowment insurance system which used in mainland China by the Kuomintang government in the1950s. Secondly, since the development of Taiwan’s political liberalization in1950s, the pension system has been transformed from the "single-coverage" mode to "multiple coverage" mode, and this transformation could be considered as the outcome of the battles and games in Taiwan’s political area, because the political factor of the pension system has become the crucial chip in the games between those politicians in Taiwan. Thirdly, the disadvantages of Taiwan’s pension system, including implementation of sustainability, the trend of unfair and fragmentation, should not be ignored by us while the advantages of a pension system in Taiwan have been extremely stressed by scholars.To sum up, In this research, I intend to reveal the path dependent processes in Taiwanese pension system and the factors which influence these processes. Moreover, this research also concentrates on the "purpose-mode" of the pension system in Taiwan. Accordingly, I argue that even though many factors, including economy, culture and politics, indeed have such a profound.impact on the Taiwanese pension system, but the political factor could be considered as the main path-dependent factor.