The Future of State Welfare in East Asia

Abstract

The influential industrialism thesis states that the welfare state is a necessary and inevitable product of both the needs and the new resources generated by the process of industrialization (Pierson, 1991). From the perspective of functionalist sociology in the postwar period, the rise of the welfare state and the curtailment of the ‘excesses’ of liberal capitalism could be seen as a response to the new ‘needs’ generated by the development of industrial societies. As industrialization progresses, this perspective predicts the growth of the single-generation nuclear family, relatively low status for the aged, full implementation of social welfare institutions, and a substantial percentage of government spending. Since industrialization takes place in both developed and developing countries, the paths of social welfare development for developed and developing countries are predicted to converge.