The story of China's spectacular economic growth is well known. Less well known is the country's equally dramatic, though not always equally successful, social policy transition. Between the mid- 1990s and mid-2000s---the focal period for this book---China's central government went a long way toward consolidating the social policy framework that had gradually emerged in piecemeal fashion during the initial phases of economic liberalization. Major policy decisions during the focal period included adopting a single national pension plan for urban areas, standardizing unemployment insurance, (re)establishing nationwide rural health care coverage, opening urban education systems to children of rural migrants, introducing trilingual education policies in ethnic minority regions, expanding college enrolment, addressing the challenge of HIV/AIDS more comprehensively, and equalizing social welfare spending across provinces, among others. Unresolved is the direction of policy in the face of longer-term industrial and demographic trends---and the possibility of a chronically weak global economy. Chinese Social Policy in a Time of Transition offers scholars, practitioners, students, and policymakers a foundation from which to explore those issues based on a composite snapshot of Chinese social policy at its point of greatest maturation prior to the 2007 global crisis.

Edited by Douglas Besharov, Norman and Florence Brody Professor, University of Maryland School of Public Policy, USA, and Karen Baehler, Scholar in Residence, School of Public Affairs, American University, USA

Douglas J. Besharov is the Norman and Florence Brody Professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, where he teaches courses on poverty, welfare, children and families, policy analysis, program evaluation, and performance management. He is also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, where he leads a program in international policy exchanges. In 2008, he was President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) and is currently APPAM's International Conference Coordinator. Karen Baehler is Scholar in Residence at the American University School of Public Affairs and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the Australia New Zealand School of Government. Her research focuses on the theory and practice of policy analysis in social and environmental policy. She holds a Ph.D. in Policy Sciences from the University of Maryland.

Contributors:

Contributors

Bob Adamson

Department of International Education and Lifelong Learning

Hong Kong Institute of Education

Hong Kong, China

Feng Anwei

School of Education

Bangor University

Bangor, Gwynedd, United Kingdom

Karen Baehler

Department of Public Administration and PolicySchool of Public Affairs

American University

Washington, DC

Douglas J. Besharov

School of Public Policy

University of Maryland

College Park, Maryland

Mostaem Billah

Department of Geography

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Yanwei Chai

Department of Urban and Economic Geography

Peking University

Beijing, P.R. China

Juan Chen

Department of Applied Social Sciences

Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Hong Kong, China

Roger Detels

School of Public Health

University of California Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Martin Evans

Oxford Institute of Social Policy

University of Oxford

Oxford, United Kingdom

Barry L. Friedman

The Heller School for Social Policy and Management

Brandeis University

Waltham, Massachusetts

Mary E. Gallagher

Department of Political Sciences

University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Qin Gao

Graduate School of Social Service

Fordham University

Bronx, New York

Song Gao

China Academy of Public Finance and Public Policy

Central University of Finance and Economics

Beijing, China

Irwin Garfinkel

School of Social Work

Columbia University

New York, New York

Jing Guo

School of Social Work

University of Hawaii at Manoa

Honolulu, Hawaii

Emily Hannum

Sociology Faculty

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Zhilin Liu

School of Pubblic Policy and Management

Tsinghua University

Beijing, P.R. China

Jonathan D. London

Department of Asian and International Studies

City University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong, China

Xiangyi Meng

China Academy of Public Finance and Public Policy

Central University of Finance and Economics

Beijing, China

Li Qian,

School of Foreign Languages

Northwest Normal University

Lanzhou , P.R. China

Liu Quanguo

School of Foreign Languages

Northwest Normal University

Lanzhou , P.R. China

Mary Jane Rotheram

Center for HIV Identification,

Prevention and Treatment Services (CHIPTS)

University of California Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Josephine Smart

Department of Anthropology

University of Calgary

Calgary, Alberta Canada

Sheena G. Sullivan

National Centre for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention

Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention

Beijing, China School of Public Health

University of California Los Angeles

School of Public Health

Los Angeles, California

Reeta Tremblay

Department of Political Science

University Of Victoria

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Yu Wang

Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention

Beijing, China

Zunyou Wu

National Centre for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention

Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention

Beijing, China

School of Public Health

University of California Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Wei-Jun Jean Yeung

Wei-Jun Jean Yeung

Department of Sociology and the Asia Research Institute

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

National University of Singapore, Singapore

Xin Zhang

School of Public Administration and Policy

Renmin University

Beijing, China

Yuping Zhang

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Lehigh University

Bethlehem, PA