The B05 project "Inclusion and Benefit Dynamics in the Chinese Welfare Regime" successfully completed another round of field research in China, furthering collaboration with Chinese colleagues on future social policy research.
Dr. Zhe Yan conducted extensive field research from October to December 2024. The purpose of the research trip was to explore how social policies on old-age care and unemployment are affected by demographic change and economic downturn in China. The research is timely as China is experiencing rapid population ageing and rising unemployment.
Dr. Yan visited several rural villages in Jiangxi Province, a less industrialized region in southern China, to understand the process of eldercare service delivery and to meet local actors responsible for policy implementation. One novel aspect is that China is now integrating eldercare and childcare by reallocating local resources in rural areas. Social policy in rural China remains an understudied area and deserves more research attention.
In a pilot for future research, Dr. Yan interviewed local officials involved in mitigating unemployment and had informal conversations with delivery drivers in urban areas, including university graduates and migrant workers, who have recently experienced unemployment and downward mobility. The B05 team aims to identify the outcomes of social policy in this area, and to examine public attitudes toward welfare provision and the function of social policy in maintaining regime stability.
While in China, Dr. Yan was hosted by Duke Kunshan University as a Scholar in Residence at the Center for the Study of Contemporary China. To support the field research and to meet our main collaboration partner Prof. Yuegen Xiong, B05 project leader Prof. Tobias ten Brink visited Peking University in December.
Contact:
Dr. Zhe Yan
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy, Research IV and China Global Center
Campus Ring 1
28759 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 200-3474
E-Mail: zyan@constructor.university
