ABSTRACT
In some respects, and increasingly so, Asian welfare state systems are leading global social policy development, as societal and technological changes in some Asian countries have outpaced those of e.g. Western societies and welfare states. This chapter pays special attention to the new situation of social policy and welfare state systems in the very east of Asia, but soon also increasingly around the world. Applying here a normative social policy perspective and theory (that of developmental social policy theory), this chapter depicts in detail possible effective social security solutions, while also referring in particular to the new proposal for universal basic income for each citizen (independent of their work status and record). The key finding—i.e. not just a thesis—of this concluding chapter is that extreme and continued levels of income polarity, among other major concurrent societal changes (due to societal aging, climate change, as well as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with the fast spread of artificial intelligence applications and super-digitalization) are contributing and directly causing the death (i.e. extinction in terms of function, financing and usage) of old-fashioned—200-year-old—social insurance institutions in the years and decades ahead of us. These social insurance institutions (apart from accident insurance) need to be replaced by ‘smart' universal benefits and services, ‘good' conditional cash transfer systems that do not apply any form of asset and means testing, as well as Asian-style provident fund systems and, perhaps, more than that, such as universal basic income schemes.
