Title
Show us you are poor and a good citizen : public assistance eligibility in Chinese main cities
Document Type
Presentation
Source Publication
Integrating International Research, Policy and Practice in Developing Welfare Services
Publication Date
9-16-2015
Publisher
Sun Yat-Sen University
Abstract
This paper examines the eligible criteria of the Minimum Living Standard Scheme (MLSS) in Chinese main cities. The MLSS policy documents of 31 Chinese cities were obtained from relevant local governments’ websites and then analysed by NVivo 10 for Windows. It was found that the cities are using several criteria to assess the eligibility of public assistance applicants, including income, expenditures, living space, household electrical appliances, leisure, motivation to work, and acceptable behaviour. It is obvious that the local governments have adopted a life-style assessment approach to decide the eligibility of the applicants. This approach, however, has two main weaknesses. Firstly, the MLSS claimants have to demonstrate that they are in extreme hardship and this has separated them from the rest of society. Their poor quality of life will be a barrier to their social integration to community. Secondly, some terms about the quality of life style are too ambiguous and different cities have different criteria on a poor living standard. As public assistance criteria vary from city to city, this leads to an unequal access to public benefits among Chinese citizens
Full-text Version
Accepted Author Manuscript
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Chan, C.-K. (2015, September). Show us you are poor and a good citizen: Public assistance eligibility in Chinese main cities. Paper presented at Integrating International Research, Policy and Practice in Developing Welfare Services, Guangzhou, China.
