China's Social Policy Response to Covid-19: Pragmatic Adjustment of Existing Welfare Institutions

Abstract

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Chinese government has utilized and pragmatically adjusted existing welfare institutions to ensure social and economic stability. This report describes the Chinese social policy responses in 2020 to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus crisis and focuses on specific countermeasures, such as cash benefits and benefits-in-kind for vulnerable people in the fields of health, social assistance, unemployment, and elderly care. Moreover, social insurance contributions for enterprises were reduced and deferred to help revive the economy. As shown in this report, many countermeasures were of a temporary nature, and can be defined as adaptations of the existing basic social security net, supplemented by administrative innovations such as the digitalization of means testing, for instance.