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Abstract
Developing an old-age service system that can meet the fast-growing needs of the aging population is challenging. It is increasingly recognised that community-level services should be pivotal in providing services to older people. In this article, the authors use the Chinese experience and argue that because the state is not clear how such a system should look like, all actors behave like entrepreneurs who strategise, take risks and search for a viable "business model". The research draws upon in-depth interviews and focus groups in six cities in China collected in 2015-2016 and follow-up interviews in one community in three cities in 2021. The findings show that the service system has evolved into a dynamic entrepreneurial welfare mix that actively embraces the market. This research contributes to the theoretical development of the welfare mix. The authors also raised possible issues with such a direction of change in the conclusion.

This paper examines the primary social changes in China that posed major challenges to its social service delivery and the government responses to these challenges. It argues that introducing social organizations into the social service delivery system unavoidably departs from the previous narrative of the state-SO relationship by turning communities into a space that offers opportunities for each stakeholder to seek new sources of funding, new businesses and new opportunities to engage with the civil society. This is followed by a discussion of the research methods to be used in the whole research (including the three reports). The research findings provide the state of SOs in China and how different types of SOs operate to fulfil different roles.

This paper studies the increasing migrant population in Chinese cities that created serious challenges for the hosting cities. Ignoring migrants' need for a social integration population might help the government or host society save money in the short term, however, it can sow the seeds of social instability in the long term. Local governments in China are concerned that they have to cope with the economic, social and political pressure resulting from a rapid growth in the urban population. Following the abolishment of the Detention and Eviction System (Shourong Qiansong Zhidu) in 2005, the treatment of migrant workers and migrants in general improved significantly. Until 2015, migrant workers gained greater access to social insurance contributions and benefits, while rural−urban migrant children could attend urban schools. In some smaller cities and large cities in the west, migrant workers could access government-subsidized housing. However, these policy changes did not fully satisfy the demands of the migrant population. This may be due to policies being poorly designed or difficult to implement. It may also be a result of migrants' responses that stem, for example, from marginalization vis-à-vis the urbanization agenda or lack of trust in the system.

AbstractInequalities within and between countries continue to grow as a result of globalization. Although traditional anti‐poverty efforts from governments and NGOs have had their respective successes, poverty continues to exist in every country, particularly in rural areas where there are fewer resources to support socioeconomic development. Private enterprises may use their strengths, including market knowledge and accessibility to various resources, to develop innovative business models that can provide viable and effective solutions to social problems such as poverty. This article examines a case study of a poverty alleviation initiative by Jingdong (JD). The results indicate that JD utilizes industrial poverty alleviation to empower local enterprises. Through the use of education and training, finance, and employment support, JD builds an ecosystem that provides local enterprises high‐quality employees and reliable logistics with which to conduct business. As a result, the JD model enables local enterprises to compensate farmers with sufficient wages that can reduce poverty and improve their well‐being, creating a mutually beneficial solution for all stakeholders. The findings demonstrate the potential of a private enterprise to reduce poverty in a way that might not be otherwise independently achieved by government and NGOs.

In 2014, the Chinese government adopted a version of the controversial Big Push approach to poverty reduction, and augmented this once-discredited developmental narrative by enlisting very large private enterprises to operate in the poorest regions. Not without controversies, this approach and the resources associated with it has created new state-large business relations in China. This article studies four large enterprises and examines why they participated in poverty reduction, the resulting state–business relations and the outcomes of poverty reduction. The field research was conducted in 2018 through in depth interviews with company management and site visits. The findings show that the local state became collaborators of big businesses that were endorsed by the central government. Whether these relationships become formalised will depend on the future direction of poverty reduction. This research contributes to the literature on how state–business relations may initiate economic growth.

A rapid ageing population coupled with changes in family structure has brought about profound implications to social policy in China. Although the past decade has seen a steady increase in public funding to long-term care (LTC), the narrow financing base and vast population have created significant unmet demand, calling for reforms in financing. This paper focuses on the financing of institutional LTC care by examining new models that have emerged from local policy experiments against two policy goals: equity and efficiency. Three emerging models are explored: Social Health Insurance (SHI) in Shanghai, LTC Nursing Insurance (LTCNI) in Qingdao and a means-tested model in Nanjing. A focused systematic narrative review of academic and grey literature is conducted to identify and assess these models, supplemented with qualitative interviews with government officials from relevant departments, care home staff and service users. This paper argues that, although SHI appears to be a convenient solution to fund LTC, this model has led to systematic bias in affordable access among participants of different insurance schemes, and has created a powerful incentive for the over-provision of unnecessary services. The means-tested method has been remarkably constrained by narrow eligibility and insufficiency of funding resources. The LTCNI model is by far the most desirable policy option among the three studied here, but the narrow definition of eligibility has substantively excluded a large proportion of elders in need from access to care, which needs to be addressed in future reforms. This paper proposes three lines of LTC financing reforms for policy-makers: (1) the establishment of a prepaid financing mechanism pooled specifically for LTC costs; (2) the incorporation of more stringent eligibility rules and needs assessment; and (3) reforming the dominant fee-for-service methods in paying LTC service providers.

There remains limited literature to facilitate understanding of healthy ageing-related policies in China over the last five-year policy planning cycle. This study aims to characterise all relevant policies and identifies the policy gaps from a health system perspective. A scoping review framework was used. A thorough search for healthy ageing-related policies was performed on the websites of all government ministries affiliated with the Chinese State Council. Essential information was extracted and mapped to an integrated framework of the World Health Organization's Health System Building Blocks and the Chinese 13(th) Five-Year Plan for Healthy Ageing. A total of 12471 policy documents were identified, while 99 policy documents were included. There were 14 ministries involved in the generation of policies, but multisectoral collaboration between the ministries remained limited. National Health Commission and Ministry of Civil Affairs were the leading ministries. Promoting the integration of medical services and older people care was most frequently addressed within these policies. Applying the health system perspective, governance and financing were often addressed, but there were limited policies on other components of the health system. The findings of this study support four policy recommendations: (1) to enhance multisectoral collaboration in policy development; (2) to strengthen health system building blocks, including healthcare workforce, service delivery, health information, and medical products and technologies; (3) to establish a consolidated policy system centered on the national healthy ageing plan; (4) to formulate a national implementation work plan to promote an integrated health care model for older people.