China

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Situation and Priorities

Social protection situation
China’s social security system has undergone a comprehensive overhaul since the 1980s, making significant progress in building a system that covers all social protection branches and has achieved universal legal coverage of old-age pension and health insurance within a relatively short time period.

However many challenges still remain: China has increasing numbers of urban residents and an ageing population. The social protection system can be described as legally unified but administratively fragmented, which results in portability problems for workers moving across provinces. A major concern is how to integrate different social security schemes thus providing a universal social protection system for rural and urban workers. Many workers and their families, within the large informal economy and the growing gig economy, which includes flexible and migrant workers(or both), remain outside basic insurance schemes.
COVID-19 and other crises
Social protection was an indispensable mechanism for delivering support to individuals during the crisis. The measures taken by the Government of China include:
  • Expanding coverage of unemployment benefits by relaxing eligibility criteria: there were 2.3 million beneficiaries in the first quarter of 2020, although as many as 50-80 million people had not yet returned to work or had lost their job.
  • The benefit level of the social pension and the poverty allowance (Dibao) was increased.
  • Social security contributions were waived for small and medium-sized enterprises.
COVID-19 highlighted the need for the improvement of social assistance in emergencies and shocks, including relief work for members of disadvantaged groups amid public emergencies. Policy dialogue is ongoing as part of a wider reform of the social assistance system.
Government and social partner priorities
  • The Government of China (GOC) adopted the Directive on Reforming and Improving the Social Assistance System in August 2020. Two stages and specific objectives are laid out for the first time: In approximately two years, the GOC aims to build a tiered and classified social assistance system with Chinese characteristics for both urban and rural areas, with a comprehensive legal framework.
  • Expand the coverage of the unemployment insurance system: 196 million were legally covered in 2019, compared to a labour force of 800 million.
  • Improve the delivery of social protection services through the use of digital technologies.
  • Enhance the public health system and provide more equitable and high-quality education.
  • Eliminate rural poverty by end of 2020: the GOC has reduced poverty from 10.6% to 0.6% since 2012.

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ILO Experts

IMG
Kenichi Hirose
Senior Specialist, Social Protection
IMG
Rubén Vicente
Project Manager
IMG
Qingyi Li
National Social Protection Officer
IMG
Buyuan Zhang
Project Asst
IMG
Jie Zhou
National Project Coordinator