Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 6, 2022

A Road to Common Prosperity: The Rise of Social Construction and Welfare Expenditure

(Abstract)

Jiao Changquan and Dong Leiming

Since 2000, China has experienced a “golden age” of social construction similar to that in industrialized Western countries during the 1960s and 1980s. At present, China has set up the world’s largest social security and housing security system, the spread of compulsory education has reached the average level of high-income countries, and the main health indicators are generally higher than the average of middle and high-income countries. Obviously, China has now gone beyond the threshold of “low welfare” countries, as the share of welfare expenditure in GDP is as high as it was in developed countries around the 1980s. Welfare has become the predominant public expenditure. The central government is playing an increasingly prominent role in ensuring the people’s livelihood, and a new social security system for which governments at all levels are responsible is coming into being.