PPOL Divisional Seminar Series - From Easy to Hard Redistribution: Adaptation of China’s Welfare State in the 21st Century

Dear Students and Colleagues,

The Division of Public Policy (PPOL), in collaboration with Global China Center (GCC) and Division of Social Science (SOSC), cordially invites you to attend the seminar entitled "From Easy to Hard Redistribution: Adaptation of China’s Welfare State in the 21st Century". We are privileged to host Prof. Xian Huang, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University and affiliated with the Rutgers Center for Chinese Studies, as our distinguished speaker for the talk.

Abstract:

Existing research explains why non-electoral regimes expand welfare provision, yet pays less attention to how the welfare systems adapt when expansion becomes difficult due to structural constraints. This paper argues that China’s welfare state has transitioned from “easy” to “hard” redistribution—a reconfiguration of welfare provision characterized by a decline in group-targeted expansion, a rise of selective cross-group integration, and a persistent dominance of vertical fiscal allocation across regions. Drawing on a corpus of 33,205 policy documents, we employ quantitative text analysis to trace patterns in Chinese welfare policy from 2000 to 2024. We find that since 2014, the government has increasingly emphasized integrating welfare programs across selected groups to facilitate risk pooling and cost sharing, while continuing to prioritize vertical allocation of responsibilities and resources between upper- and lower-level governments over horizontal coordination. These findings demonstrate the adaptation of China’s welfare state on both social and territorial dimensions under tightening fiscal and demographic constraints.