The first event of the new year was a lecture by Prof. Yuegen Xiong from Peking University, China. As part of the CRC 1342 Jour Fixe he gave a talk on "Social Security Reform in Transitional China. Post-pandemic Challenges and Policy Reformulations" on January 10, 2024.
Yuegen Xiong described China’s socio-economic scenarios after the pandemic and analyzed its impact on the social security system. Following up on this, he elaborated the answers to the questions, how China adjusted its social policies to respond to the changing international atmosphere and domestic situations and whether the rural revitalization will be a new policy drive for social security system integration.
In his talk he gave an overview of the complex interdependencies and goal conflicts between various agendas in social and economic policy in urban and rural China. He particularly focused on policy change in health policy, health insurance and hospital payment; pension insurance and social assistance; and unemployment, economic recovery and the rural revitalization agenda. Furthermore, he elaborated on important aspects of public opinion and the anti-corruption campaign that are relevant for social policy. His insights are of considerable importance for contextualizing the findings of ongoing research on Chinese social policy.
Yuegen Xiong is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Social Policy Research (CSPR) at Peking University, China. He is the author of Needs, Reciprocity and Shared Function: Policy and Practice of Elderly Care in Urban China (Shanghai Renmin Press, 2008) and Social Policy: Theories and Analytical Approaches (Renmin University Press, 2009). Xiong graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a PhD in social welfare in 1998 and joined Peking University as a faculty after completing two-year post-doctoral research in the Department of Sociology. He was the British Academy KC Wong Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford during November 2002-September 2003, the Fellow at the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study (HWK), Delmenhorst, Germany during December 2003-February 2004, the JSPS Fellow at the University of Tokyo in October, 2005 and a visiting professor at Jacobs University Bremen during October-December, 2015 and visiting professor at the Center for Modern East Asian Studies, University of Göttingen, Germany in December, 2017. In the past years, he has published extensively in the field of social policy, comparative welfare regimes, social work, NGOs and civil society. He is the editorial member of Asian Social Work and Policy Review (Wiley), Asian Education and Development Studies (Emerald), the British Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (UK) and International Journal of Community and Social Development (Sage). Prof. Xiong has been acting as the Co-Director of the Academic Committee, LSE-PKU Summer School Program since 2018.
Contact:
Dr. Armin Müller
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy, Research IV and China Global Center
Campus Ring 1
28759 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 200-3473
E-Mail: armmueller@constructor.university
