Study On The Depth Of Government’s Social Security Responsibility

In the present-day world, social security is facing profound changes. Developing countries with economic growing strive to improve their social security level, while the welfare states are in the difficult reforms. In this backdrop, it is particularly important to summarize the rule of social security system developing so as to indicate the future direction of reform. Government is an important responsibility main body of social security. The scope and degree in which government take social security responsibilities reflect the involvement depth of government in social security. What is the change rule of the depth of government’s social security responsibility? What are the influencing factors which lead changes of the depth of government’s social security responsibility? What is the relationship between the depth of government’s social security responsibility and economic growth? This thesis will strive to solve the three problems, and to provide a new angle, a new viewpoint and a new method for the research of government’s social security responsibility.First, this thesis taking the depth of government’s social security responsibility (public social expenditures/fiscal spending) as a unified quantitative indicator, calculates the data from the OECD leading countries in 1980-2009,makes comparison of the results, and summarizes four aspects of the change rule and characteristic of the depth of government’s social security responsibility across the world. Second, based on the theory and literature analysis, the thesis finds that economic globalization and aging population are worldwide factors which lead the rising of the depth of government’s social security responsibility across the world, by summarizing the factors which can lead the rising of the depth of government’s social security responsibility. Then the thesis verifies the above factors by adopting panel data econometric analysis method. The result shows that the depth of government’s social security responsibility has significant positive correlation with both economic globalization and ageing population. Third, the key to identify whether the depth of government’s social security responsibility is excessive or not is to see if the depth of government’s social security responsibility is compatible with the economic development and if it is causing an excessive burden on government finance which threatens economic development. Through theoretical analysis, the thesis holds the opinion that moderately increase of the depth of government’s social security responsibility will have a promoting effect on economic growth, but if the depth continues to rise, it will have a series of negative effects on the economy. Empirical analysis results show that the economic growth and the depth of government’s social security responsibility have significant negative correlation, on the whole. However, when the depth of government’s social security responsibility is lower, it has a positive correlation with the economic growth; with the increase of the depth of government’s social security responsibility, its relationship with economic growth will change from positive correlation to negative correlation.Based on the above conclusions, this thesis puts forward four suggestions:First, expand social security financing channels, and establish a multi-pillar social security system; Second, optimize the structure of social security expenditure, change passive spending for positive spending; Third, postpone the retirement age properly, encourage elderly population to obtain re-employment; Fourth, control the involvement depth of government in social security according to national conditions, prevent the excessively rapid growth of the level of social security.