On The Old-supporting Policy For Retired Petitioners From Corporatized Public Institutions

With the rapid development of society and economy, China saw her significant changes of patterns in the division of societal interests. Different interests of disparate interest groups also posed a threat to social stability. In this context, retired employees from corporatized public institutions began to petition the local government to strengthen their old-supporting policy arrangements. As an important vulnerable group in the transitional period, the living condition of the group of retired employees from corporatized public institutions and the old-supporting policies they enjoy have been neglected by academia and practitioners for a long time. The thesis analyzes changes of old-supporting policies the group enjoyed before and after the corporatization of public institutions from which they retired, explored structural factors which led to the changes and proposed the perspective of recommodification with Chinese characteristics. The thesis also put forward some specific measures and suggestions which aim to construct an open, inclusive, elastic and multivariate policy-provision system of old-supporting welfare and services and solve old-supporting problems faced by the group in the Chinese context.The thesis systematically analyzes the transformation process of the group’s identity from workers in public institutions to workers in state-owned enterprises and consequential shift in old-supporting policy. The thesis also reveals structural factors which led to the defectiveness of old-supporting policies enjoyed by the group. Employing the perspective of decommodification by G(?)sta Esping-Andersen and Julian Le Grand’s classification of economic and societal activities by government, by means of structured interview and methods of qualitative analysis, and complying with research ethics in social sciences, the thesis discovered that the group lacks effective material old-supporting policies and has no access to mental old-supporting policies and that the group are faced with both policy and scheme isolation. The thesis finally concludes that problematic corporatization policies are sources of the defectiveness of old-supporting policies targeted at the group and that the absence of nomocracy and the swell of administrative power are the structural factors which interfere the solution of the above problems.The thesis enriches the application of the perspective of decommodification by Gosta Esping-Andersen in Chinese context; the thesis also employs Julian Le Grand’s classification of government activities in Chinese field of social policy and social welfare for the first time. The thesis provides governments at all levels with effective support as for the revision of old-supporting policies targeted at different social groups through scientific institutional and practical analysis. The revision principles of policy proposed by the thesis are also beneficial to the shift of government’s focus to people’s well-being. Nevertheless, the author raised several questions for further discussion. How to implement the transfer of old-supporting insurances in a more fair way; how to improve the group’s mental health by means of feasible and effective socialization policy arrangements; how to promote the development of industry of supplementary pension so as to satisfy the ever-growing old-supporting needs of different people better.