Social Assistance For The Poors Under The Perspective Of Institutionalism Theory

Social assistance policies got richer gradually and constituted a comprehensive safety net for the poors since the establishment of minimum subsistence guarantee system. Social assistance included assistance of basic living, education, health care and so on, and it strengthened the intensity of poverty alleviation. The paper made in-depth investigations into and analysis of social assistance for the recipients of minimum subsistence security allowances in Pukou district, and raised the following questions, including how social assistance developed, what the current social assistance was, what the function and the existing problems were, how to make progress. By integrating the perspective of institutionalism theory, the research focused on the development of social assistance since 1978 and the policy concept (value), the policy structure, and policy implementation system of current social assistance. It was full of theoretical significance, policy significance and service significance to summarize the effectiveness and problems of social assistance, and put forward the improvement suggestions for the problem through the empirical analysis of social assistance.This paper used qualitative research and action research as the main research methods, literature review, in-depth interviews, participant observation and non-participant observation as the main methods of data collection. Through research of social assistance, author found that the values of social assistance for the poor group in Pukou district deepened, the policy structure gradually gotten richer and the policy implementation system improved. In the aspect of concept (value), awareness of rights and political participation of citizens was enhanced, the values of fairness and justice was recognized. In the aspect of policy structure, multi-level system was formed, the level of relief and the details was improved. In the aspect of implementation system, service patterns was improved, efficiency was increased. But there still existed difficulties or problems of policy ethics, content structure and system implementation, such as financial expenditure pressure, lack of personnel allocation and so on. So it was necessary to reform social assistance. The guidance of the concept and value, the requirements of solving the problem, the trend of the international anti-poverty experience, provided a preliminary direction for the improvement of social assistance. Therefore, the author put forward recommendations such as strengthening the publicity of the social assistance concept, improving the legal level of policy system, making rational allocation of resources and so on.There were two innovative aspects of this paper. Firstly, integrating the perspective of institutionalism theory.Secondly, the research focused on the poors who acquaired minimum subsistence security allowances.