Handbook of Welfare in China

Reviews / Votes

'The Handbook of Welfare in China is a good example of a handbook. The text finds the balance between the contributors' detailed knowledge and the editors' efforts to produce coherent contribution. It is a publication entering what will be an increasingly competitive market with a number of edited volumes covering welfare in China from a research perspective already out, and a number of handbooks planned for the future which either touch on or are exclusively focused on welfare. Despite this competition I would suggest that the Handbook of Welfare in China will successfully find a space on many reading lists and a place in any good library.' -- The China Quarterly 'How to make sense of the massive changes that have taken place in China's welfare system in recent decades? Is China becoming a welfare state and if so, is it residual, conservative, Confucian - or something else entirely different? What are China's most salient gaps in welfare provision, and what are the key emerging issues and actors of its rapidly changing social welfare system? The Handbook of Welfare in China, edited by Beatriz Carrillo, Johanna Hood and Paul Kadetz is an impressive and timely resource to start answering these questions. It offers a comprehensive and detailed overview of several aspects of social welfare in China, covers recent policy efforts, and underlines the causes and consequences of gaps in welfare provision in different areas of welfare. The book also incorporates useful historical background to China's social welfare system and outlines emerging trends and future policy challenges of welfare provision. The Handbook of Welfare in China thus stands as an excellent reference on the topic of welfare in China.' -- Journal of Chinese Political Science 'As a Handbook, this volume has performed its mission. The readers will find it extremely insightful and useful in understanding welfare contemporary China and its historical roots.' -- Cambridge Core 'This is a needed book, bracing in its diversity and scope. As a collection of authoritative studies of welfare in China, it is a Handbook in the best sense of the word: China researchers, and others concerned with global health and social inequality, will want to keep it ready to hand, to consult as a reservoir of up-to-date facts, carefully analysed. All of these scholars challenge the liberal term "welfare" through the experience of Chinese socialism, even as they make the category useful for comparative and critical research.' -- Judith Farquhar, University of Chicago, US