ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the old-age income maintenance programmes in Taiwan, and hence the need for a national pension insurance programme, and why the matter of pensions has become a political issue. It analyses the planning proposals for the national pension insurance and examines it in its social context, to assess its possible impact on the economic security of elderly people in Taiwan. There are two distinct kinds of social security system geared to protecting old-age income security in Taiwan. One is social insurance, the other is social assistance. Social insurance takes care of the most important old-age income security provision in Taiwan. The most obvious inadequacy of old-age security systems in Taiwan is the incompleteness of their coverage. The so-called ‘welfare state in crisis’ debate has given some Taiwanese economic technocrats a perfect excuse for their neglect of state welfare and for their continued resistance to state welfare.
