Social security has edged out employment to become the top
concern of residents in urban China where a record number of jobs
were created this year, a top government think tank said
yesterday.
Between 2001 and 2005, "lay-offs and unemployment" led the list
of worries for urbanites, but they have been replaced by "social
security" this year, which saw a raft of cases related to pension
fund misuse.
The findings were released yesterday in Beijing by the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)?in its annual report on
social development.
Based on in-home surveys in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou as well
as some other cities and towns, researchers find that nearly 38
percent of the respondents listed social security as "the social
issue of most concern" for the year, followed by employment, at
32.5 percent.
In similar annual polls from 2001 to 2005, between 39.7 percent
and 53.5 percent listed employment as their top worry.
The findings coincided with a report from the Ministry of Labor
and Social Security, which said that 10.8 million jobs were created
in cities during the first 11 months of the year, easily surpassing
the whole-year target of 9 million.
This was the first time in many years that the figure topped the
10-million mark, meaning the country's employment support policies
are yielding dividends, said ministry official Wang Yadong.
At the same time, China is building a social security net that
provides urbanites with safeguards against unemployment, work
injury, maternity, sickness and old age.
Support is also given in the form of subsistence allowances and
housing provident funds.
The central government pledged on Saturday that starting next
year, the social security net will be extended in the countryside.
The system is currently being piloted in some rural areas.
The survey finds that slightly more than a third of the
urbanites are not covered by social security in any form; and
another third say they are benefiting from one or two social
welfare schemes, such as old-age pension and basic medical
care.
Yuan Yue, chairman of Horizon Research Group, said yesterday
that pension-fund corruption scandals this year have made the
public feel worried about social security.
"The coverage of China's social security net is limited; and
there are cases where the pension funds were embezzled. These are
the contributing factors (that intensified the public's worries
about social security)," Yuan said.
In September, suspected involvement in the 10 billion-yuan
(US$1.3 billion) Shanghai social security fund fraud led to the
sacking of Shanghai's top official Chen Liangyu, and later, the
removal of Qiu Xiaohua as head of the National Bureau of
Statistics.
The central budget has allotted nearly 186 billion yuan (US$23.8
billion) to subsidize social security and employment projects this
year, up 14.5 percent from 2005, according to Li Peilin, director
of CASS' Institute of Sociology.
Partly because of the spending support, nearly 10 million more
workers were brought under the umbrella against work injuries,
indicated official statistics.
This may partially explain why the research finds urbanites
"affirmatively" rate government efforts to improve social
security.
However, the pressure on the social security system will mount
in the years ahead, Li said.
For one thing, the ratio of the workforce to the retired was
20:1 in the early 1980s. It is expected to reach 2.5 to 1 by 2020,
Li Bengong, executive deputy director of the China National
Committee on Aging, told a recent national meeting.
The situation has promoted central and local governments to
earmark at least 50 billion yuan (US$6.4 billion) a year to pay for
old-age pension alone.
(China Daily December 26, 2006)