Twenty-five years ago, Ian Holliday introduced the ‘Productivist Welfare Capitalism’ (PWC) thesis in Political Studies, challenging the classification of the East Asian welfare regime alongside Western models. Debate persists over whether East Asian societies still fit the ‘productivist’ label or how to define a potential ‘post-productivist’ era. This article examines five causal conditions – economic growth, population ageing, economic globalisation, unemployment and deindustrialisation – to analyse the factors driving welfare development in mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), it finds that since the turn of the century (2000–2021), economic growth is no longer a prerequisite for welfare expansion in these economies, challenging the basic tenet of the PWC thesis. Instead, population ageing and integration into the global economy have driven welfare expansion across East Asia, reflecting a general transformation towards addressing emergent welfare needs in the region.
ADB (2022) Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2022: Asian Development Bank.
2.
AllanJPScruggsL (2004) Political Partisanship and Welfare State Reform in Advanced Industrial Societies. American Journal of Political Science48 (3): 496–512.
3.
AspalterC (2006) The East Asian Welfare Model. International Journal of Social Welfare15 (4): 290–301.
4.
BaumolWJ (1967) Macroeconomics of Unbalanced Growth: The Anatomy of Urban Crisis. The American Economic Review: 415–426.
5.
BloomDCanningDSevillaJ (2003) The Demographic Dividend: A New Perspective on the Economic Consequences of Population Change. Rand Corporation.
6.
BrooksCManzaJ (2006) Why Do Welfare States Persist?The Journal of Politics68 (4): 816–827.
7.
ChoiYJ (2013) Developmentalism and Productivism in East Asian Welfare Regimes. In Handbook on East Asian Social Policy. Edward Elgar Publishing, pp.207–225.
8.
ChoiYJEHuberW-SKimH-Y, et al. (2020) Social Investment in the Knowledge-Based Economy: New Politics and Policies. Policy & Society39 (2): 147–170.
9.
CroissantA (2002) Electoral Politics in South Korea. In: CroissantA.BrunsG.JohnM. (Eds) Electoral Politics in Southeast and East Asia. Singapore: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, pp.233–276.
10.
CroissantA (2004) Changing Welfare Regimes in East and Southeast Asia: Crisis, Change and Challenge. Social Policy & Administration38 (5): 504–524.
11.
DGBAS (2011) The Republic of China Statistical Yearbook 2010. Taibei: Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, R.O.C. (Taiwan).
12.
DusaA (2019) QCA with R. A Comprehensive Resource. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
13.
Esping-AndersenG (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
14.
FerraginaEDeemingC (2023) Comparative Mainstreaming? Mapping the Uses of the Comparative Method in Social Policy, Sociology and Political Science since the 1970s. Journal of European Social Policy33 (1): 132–147.
15.
FuTHHwangGJ (2018) Reforming Public Pensions in Democratizing Korea and Taiwan: Actors, Institutions and Policy Outcomes. Journal of Asian Public Policy11 (1): 67–82.
16.
GoodmanRPengI (1996) The East Asian Welfare States: Peripatetic Learning, Adaptive Change, and Nation-Building. In: G.Esping-Andersen (Ed) Welfare States in Transition: National Adaptations in Global Economies. London: Sage, pp.192–224.
17.
GoughI (2004) East Asia: The Limits of Productivist Regimes. In: GoughI.WoodG. (eds) Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America: Social Policy in Development Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.169–201.
18.
GoughIMcGregorJA (eds) (2007) Wellbeing in Developing Countries: From Theory to Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
19.
HaE (2008) Globalization, Veto Players, and Welfare Spending. Comparative Political Studies41 (6): 783–813.
20.
HaggardSKaufmanR (2008) Democratization, Crisis and the Changing Social Contract in East Asia. Crisis as Catalyst: Asia’s Dynamic Political Economy93.
21.
HollidayI (2000) Productivist Welfare Capitalism: Social Policy in East Asia. Political Studies48 (4): 706–723.
22.
HollidayI (2005) East Asian Social Policy in the Wake of the Financial Crisis: Farewell to Productivism?Policy & Politics33 (1): 145–162.
23.
HollidayIWildingP (2003) Welfare Capitalism in East Asia: Social Policy in the Tiger Economies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
24.
HongINgokK (2022) The Industrialisation Thesis, Revisited: Understanding Welfare Expansion in China through Social Expenditure Data (2000–2019). Social Policy & Administration56 (6): 874–890.
25.
HudsonJKühnerS (2012) Analyzing the Productive and Protective Dimensions of Welfare: Looking beyond the OECD. Social Policy & Administration46 (1): 35–60.
26.
IversenTCusackTR (2000) The Causes of Welfare State Expansion: Deindustrialization or Globalization?World Politics52 (3): 313–349.
27.
JohnsonC (1982) MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975. Stanford University Press.
28.
KühnerS (2010) Do Party Governments Matter after All? Executive Ideology, Constitutional Structures and Their Combined Effect on Welfare State Change. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis12 (4): 395–415.
29.
KühnerS (2015) The Productive and Protective Dimensions of Welfare in Asia and the Pacific: Pathways Towards Human Development and Income Equality?Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy31(2): 151–173
30.
KühnerS (2018) Partisan Ideology, Veto Players and Their Combined Effect on Productive and Protective Welfare Policy: How the Left Still Matters after All?Policy Studies39 (2): 165–187.
31.
KühnerSChouKL (2019) Poverty Alleviation, Coverage and Fiscal Sustainability: Investigating the Effect of a New Social Pension in Hong Kong. International Journal of Social Welfare28 (1): 89–99.
32.
KühnerSShiSJ (2023) Diversity of Institutional Change in East Asian Social Investment Policy: The Cases of Hong Kong and Taiwan. In A Research Agenda for East Asian Social Policy. Edward Elgar Publishing, pp.13–36.
33.
KühnerSCruz-MartínezGYangN (2024) The Configurational Approach in Comparative Social Policy Analysis: Advances in Capturing the Impact of Globalisation on Social Policymaking in Moderate-n Research Designs. In: GreveB.MoreiraA.van GervenM. (eds) Handbook on the Political Economy of Social Policy. London: Edward Elgar Publishers.
34.
KuttnerKNPosenAS (2001) The Great Recession: Lessons for Macroeconomic Policy from Japan. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity2001 (2): 93–185.
35.
Kwon and Kang (2011) The East Asian Model of Economic Development. Asian-Pacific Economic Literature25(2): 116–130.
36.
KwonH (2005) Transforming the Developmental Welfare State in East Asia. Development and Change36 (3): 477–497.
37.
KwonSHollidayI (2006) The Korean Welfare State: A Paradox of Expansion in an Era of Globalisation and Economic Crisis. International Journal of Social Welfare16 (3): 242–248.
38.
LeeJKimT (2019) Social Politics of Welfare Reform in Korea and Japan: A New Way of Mobilising Power Resources. VOLUNTAS: International. Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations30: 393–407.
39.
LeeSSY (2023) Varieties of Precarity: Melting Labour and the Failure to Protect Workers in the Korean Welfare State. Policy Press.
40.
LimSBurgoonB (2020) Globalization and Support for Unemployment Spending in Asia: Do Asian Citizens Want to Embed Liberalism?Socio-Economic Review18 (2): 519–553.
41.
MidgleyJ (1986) Industrialization and Welfare: The Case of the Four Little Tigers. Social Policy & Administration20 (3): 225–238.
42.
Midgley and Tang (2001) Introduction: Social Policy, Economic Growth and Developmental Welfare. International Journal of Social Welfare10 (4): 244–252
43.
MokKHKühnerSHuangG (2017) The Productivist Construction of Selective Welfare Pragmatism in China. Social Policy & Administration51 (6): 876–897.
44.
OanaIESchneiderCQ (2018) SetMethods: An Add-On R Package for Advanced QCA. The R Journal10 (1): 507–533.
45.
PiersonP (1995) Fragmented Welfare States: Federal Institutions and the Development of Social Policy. Governance8(4): 449–478.
46.
PiersonP (2001) Post-Industrial Pressures on the Mature Welfare States In: PiersonP (ed.) The New Politics of the Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 80–104.
47.
R Core Team (2023) R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.
48.
RaginCC (2000) Fuzzy-set Social Science. University of Chicago Press.
49.
RaginCC (2006) Set Relations in Social Research: Evaluating Their Consistency and Coverage. Political Analysis14 (3): 291–310.
50.
RaginCC (2008) Redesigning Social Inquiry: Fuzzy Sets and Beyond. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
51.
SavinaGHaelgFPotrafkeN, et al. (2019) The KOF Globalisation Index – Revisited. Review of International Organizations14 (3): 543–574.
52.
SchneiderCQWagemannC (2012) Set-theoretic Methods for the Social Sciences: A Guide to Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
53.
StiglitzJE (1993) The Role of the State in Financial Markets. The World Bank Economic Review7 (suppl. 1): 19–52.
54.
StormSNaastepadCWM (2005) Strategic Factors in Economic Development: East Asian Industrialization 1950–2003. Development and Change36 (6): 1059–1094.
55.
TakegawaS (2009) International Circumstances as Factors in Building a Welfare State: Welfare Regimes in Europe, Japan and Korea. International Journal of Japanese Sociology18 (1): 79–96.
56.
TangCPY (2007) Change and Inertia in Housing Policy: Japanese Housing System during Economic Policy In: LeeJChanK-W (eds) The Crisis of Welfare in East Asia. Plymouth: Lexinton Book, pp.71–99.
57.
TangKL (2000) Social Welfare Development in East Asia. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave.
WildingP (2008) Is the East Asian Welfare Model Still Productive?Journal of Asian Public Policy1 (1): 18–31.
64.
YangN (2018) East Asia in Transition: Re-examining the East Asian Welfare Model Using Fuzzy Sets. Journal of Asian Public Policy10 (1): 104–120.
65.
YangNKühnerS (2020) Beyond the Limits of the Productivist Regime: Capturing Three Decades of East Asian Welfare Development with Fuzzy Sets. Social Policy & Society19 (4): 613–627.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
