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Social Safety Net and Family Income Packages in East Asia: Comparisons between China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan

Please join us for a lecture with:

Julia Shu-Huah Wang, Assistant Professor of Social Work, The University of Hong Kong

Moderated by:

Qin Gao, Professor of Social Policy and Social Work; Director, China Center for Social Policy

Register here.

East Asian social welfare systems have been traditionally described as productivist regimes in which most social investments focus on elements of welfare that can induce economic growth. Emerging literature points to evolving and divergent features of social safety nets within East Asia. Although these inquiries are informative, extant East Asian welfare comparative research often focuses on a limited set of social policies and seldom captures the bundle of welfare programs or the contexts in which these programs operate (e.g., tax systems and service costs). This study extends the understanding of East Asian welfare systems by comparing social safety nets in China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan using a model family approach to collect income-packaging data in each country and utilizing secondary data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). We will first employ a model family approach to shed lights on the eligibility and benefit levels of safety nets in each country. This approach entails collecting detailed income package data for 2019. Specifically, income packages include labor income; cash benefits; tax benefits; and the cost of services such as health care, education and childcare in each country for each family profile. A family profile consists of a family type and income class. We will compare distributions of labor income, tax liability, cash benefits, and service costs using descriptive statistics and visualization methods. Next, we will utilize the LIS data to investigate the social safety nets’ coverage across income distribution and poverty spectrum (% of poverty line) using quantile regression models. This study’s findings can contribute to the debate on the contemporary landscape of East Asian welfare models and inform policymakers in East Asia of the strengths of social safety nets in their countries relative to others.

This event will be conducted via Zoom. Registration required.

Co-sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, the School of Social Work & China Center for Social Policy at Columbia University.

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Immigration and Racism in Japan: Litmus test for liberal democracy?

Please join us for a panel discussion with:

Erin Chung, Charles D. Miller Associate Professor of East Asian Politics, John Hopkins University

Apichai Shipper, Asia Regional Chair at the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State; Adjunct Associate Professor in the Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service

Atsuko Abe, J. F. Oberlin University College of Liberal Arts, Tokyo, Japan

Gracia Liu-Farrer, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

Moderated by: Michael Sharpe, Research Scholar, Weatherhead East Asian Institute; Associate Professor of Political Science, York College, City University of New York

Introductory remarks by: Takako Hikotani Gerald L. Curtis Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy, Department of Political Science

This event will discuss the growing debate around whether or not Japan will become a country of immigration and the related and under addressed subject of racism. Japan is one of the few liberal democracies in the world to have successfully resisted immigration in its postwar economy. However, in the last twenty years, immigration in Japan has increased substantially with various side doors for unskilled labor as well as official entry points for skilled labor with options for fast tracked permanent residency. In 2018, Prime Minister Abe proposed some 500,000 unskilled workers by 2025 to fill jobs in industries with labor shortages while at the same time declaring that this is not an immigration policy. In the face of ageing population and low birthrate, Japan find itself at a crossroads of whether, how, and when to accept the increasing reality of immigration as a solution to its demographic decline and labor shortage. Will Japan follow the path of Western liberal democracies in accepting immigrants and extending rights of citizenship? How are immigrants being received? Do immigrants exercise political rights and build coalition with other marginalized groups? What is the role of race, ethnicity, and racism in all of this? Will Japan go the way of Western liberal democracies or in the direction of illiberal autocracies such as Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirates. This event will provide an opportunity to discuss issues of immigration and racism in Japan. It will bring together leading scholars in the field of immigration and racism with a focus on Japan.
The event will be conducted via Zoom. Please register here.

This event is organized by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University.

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New Developments in China’s financial and economic system in the 2nd edition of China Macro Finance: A US Perspective

Please join us for a lecture with:

Ronald Schramm, Visiting Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Moderated by: Shang-Jin Wei, N. T. Wang Professor of Chinese Business and Economy and Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School

Professor Jin Wei will interview Ron Schramm about new and important developments in China’s financial and economic system since the first edition of Schramm’s textbook in 2015 (Routledge/Taylor&Francis): China Macro Finance: A US Perspective. Both new reforms and retrenchments in the Chinese economy will be discussed as well as the fraught economic relationship with the United States. Students and scholars of China will benefit by putting their own research in the context of how far China has come and where it is going in terms of economic and financial reform.

Speakers Bio:

Professor Ron Schramm has spent over 30 years teaching master’s students, PhD candidates, and undergraduates around the world. Most of his career was spent teaching MBA students at Columbia Business School of New York, where he taught the widest range of courses of any faculty member. He has also taught at numerous Chinese universities, including the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) in Beijing (as a Fulbright scholar), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Chinese European International Business School (CEIBS), Xian Jiao Tong Liverpool University’s International Business School of Suzhou (IBSS) (created and directed their PhD program), and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (taught the first course ever in corporate valuation). In addition, he spent three years as an economist at the International Monetary Fund working on debt workout for heavily indebted emerging economies.

Dr. Shang-Jin Wei is N.T. Wang Professor of Chinese Business and Economy and Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and School of International and Public Affairs. During 2014-2016, Dr. Wei served as Chief Economist of Asian Development Bank and Director General of its Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department. He was ADB’s chief spokesperson on economic trends and economic development in Asia, advised ADB’s President on economic development issues, led the bank’s analytical support for regional cooperation fora including ASEAN+3 (China, Japan, and Korea) and APEC, growth strategy diagnostics for developing member countries, as well as research on macroeconomic, financial, labor market, and globalization issues. Prior to his Columbia appointment in 2007, he was Assistant Director and Chief of Trade and Investment Division at the International Monetary Fund. He was the IMF’s Chief of Mission to Myanmar (Burma) in 2004. He previously held the positions of Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, the New Century Chair in Trade and International Economics at the Brookings Institution, and Advisor at the World Bank. He has been a consultant to numerous government organizations including the U.S. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, United Nations Economic Commission on Europe, and United Nations Development Program, the Asian Development Bank, and to private companies such as PricewaterhouseCoopers. He holds a PhD in economics and M.S. in finance from the University of California, Berkeley.

The event will be streamed live on WEAI’s YouTube Channel, www.youtube.com/WeatherheadEastAsianInstitute/live

The event is co-sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the APEC Study Center at Columbia University.

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