Traditional Welfare: Family and Community the State and Welfare Thoughts

Abstract

This chapter and next chapter present the foundation of rural welfare in China, including analysis of its institutional framework as well as its traditional discourse. China has been an agricultural country over the past five thousand years and the majority of its population has always been peasants. Therefore, traditional welfare in China is primarily rural welfare and its beneficiaries are mainly peasants. The institutional framework of welfare consists of the function of family, land, community, and state or government, while welfare discourse concerns the philosophical roots underlying welfare practice. This chapter mainly concentrated the structures and functions of family and community. Family was a much tighter knit production and economic unit and served as the basic unit of welfare. Family, self-governing unit and gentry play significant roles in traditional welfare system in rural China.