“In just over one hundred years, China has undergone one of the most astounding transformations in its history of political, economic and welfare development… During these times, China's formal and informal welfare systems have been maintained by family and social relations, the State and the market – with tremendously varied outcomes and forms of support,” say Beatriz Carrillo, Johanna Hood and Paul Kadetz in the opening of Handbook of Welfare in China (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017, p. 1). In parallel, poverty, social assistance and welfare in China have become well-researched areas in scholarly literature. More specifically, the Minimum Livelihood Guarantee programme (MLG, dibao), being the largest social assistance programme in China in terms of total expenditure and the number of beneficiaries (p. 4), has recently been under close investigation by scholars. However, dibao research is mostly confined to specific case studies from different parts of China, and limited in terms of providing an inclusive picture of the Chinese policy of social assistance. Undoubtedly, the strength of Welfare, Work and Poverty is that it offers the first systematic and comprehensive evaluation of dibao in English, as mentioned by Gao more than once in different chapters. To do this, Gao brings together and synthesizes the existing evidence, including her own previous studies, in both Chinese and English, both quantitative and qualitative (p. 11). Structurally, the book is organized around nine chapters. In each chapter, Gao focuses on a different aspect of the programme, such as its development and periodization (chapter two); eligibility, means testing and beneficiaries (chapter three); targeting performance (chapter four); effectiveness in poverty alleviation (chapter five); transition from welfare to work (chapter six); household expenditures of the beneficiaries and human capital investment (chapter seven); and subjective well-being of the beneficiaries (chapter eight). Based on this detailed analysis of the programme, in the last chapter (chapter nine) Gao provides an important discussion on policy solutions and research directions to improve the effectiveness of dibao both locally and nationally. On that account, the book accomplishes its promise to provide a systematic and comprehensive evaluation of dibao.
Throughout the book, Gao firmly underlines the linkage between the CCP's aim to ensure social and political stability and the provision of social assistance to the “new poor.” Here, a few questions arise: who are the new poor? What does social and political stability mean in Chinese context? In which ways does dibao work as a social and political stability tool? To answer the first, Gao provides a detailed profiling of the dibao beneficiaries, both in urban and rural China (chapter three). To note a few of the characteristics of the population covered by dibao, working-age adults comprise the majority in both urban and rural China (p. 40). Considering the category of working-age adult dibao recipients in urban China, Gao shows 2 per cent are working full-time or part-time, 23 per cent have temporary jobs, 21 per cent are unemployed but not officially registered as unemployed, and 17 per cent are registered unemployed (p. 40). In rural China, older persons comprise the second largest group among dibao beneficiaries after working age adults (p. 40). Here it is also important to note that dibao is the main source of income for most recipient families both in urban and rural China (p. 62). It is mostly because of the limited employability of dibao recipients due to “chronic illness, low education, lack of skills, middle age, long history of unemployment, and lack of financial and social capital” (p. 82).
As for answering the second and third questions, Gao suggests, “[s]ocial assistance has functioned not only to support livelihood for the poor but as a means for political and social control. Both the ruling elite and the public share the view that social stability is essential for continued growth and prosperity of the country, and social assistance helps serve this larger purpose” (p. 8). Having said that, what is perhaps missing from Welfare, Work and Poverty is a theoretical discussion of the relationship between social and political stability and social assistance provision. Rather, this lack of theoretical discussion leads to the perception that the relationship between social and political stability and social assistance provision is taken for granted; which in turn leaves the reader questioning the ways in which dibao works as a social and political stability tool in China.
As the rich reference list provided by Gao in Welfare, Work and Poverty proves, poverty, social assistance and welfare have been and will continue to be very important components of research on contemporary China. For this reason, overall, Welfare, Work and Poverty presents a very timely contribution to English literature on dibao. The book accomplishes its promise to provide a systematic and comprehensive evaluation of dibao by focusing on various aspects of the programme including the less studied ones such as the subjective well-being of its beneficiaries. Therefore, the book deserves to be widely read not only by scholars and students of China but also by international poverty alleviation experts, and it should be added to the compulsory reading lists of social policy circles.
