Abstract
AbstractUntil recently, the Mongolian welfare system was entirely category based. However, a new food stamps programme funded by loans from the Asian Development Bank, which targets aid according to proxy means testing, has been introduced as part of the bank’s aim to push Mongolia towards a fiscally sustainable welfare model. The food stamps programme is presented as efficient and responsible in contrast to Mongolia’s universal child money programme. Based on long-term participant observation research in thegerdistricts of Ulaanbaatar, areas inhabited by many rural-urban migrants living in poverty, this paper compares the two programmes, interweaving street-level accounts of the experiences of residents and bureaucrats alike with the respective histories and funding sources of the two programmes. Doing so provides a multi-level analysis of the emergent welfare state in Mongolia, unpicking the ‘system’ thatgerdistrict residents encounter, linking the relative influence of international financial institutions to democratic and economic cycles, and offering a critique of the supposed efficiency of targeted welfare programmes.
Highlights
For the hundreds of migrant families from the Mongolian steppe that lost or sold every animal they once had and turned their sights on Ulaanbaatar in hopes of finding work to either build a new life or save enough money to return to herding (Save the Children 2013; UNESCAP 2009; Upton 2010), the reality of life in the city’s ‘ger district’ outskirts has often been harsh and unforgiving
Outdoor air quality in Ulaanbaatar remains at levels designated by the UN as dangerous or hazardous for almost the entire winter, and the fine particulate matter produced by home stoves exposes ger district residents to extremely poor-quality air indoors as well (UNICEF 2016, 2017)
As only a very small number of studies of Mongolian social welfare have been published far (Dugarova 2019; Lindskog 2014; Terbish/Rawsthorne 2016; Terbish et al 2020; Smith 2015) and ethnographic studies of low-level bureaucrats in Ulaanbaatar are limited (Fox 2019a, 2019b; Plueckhahn/Terbish 2018), this study offers a glimpse into a distinctive, post-socialist welfare system of a unique democracy, wedged between Russia and China
Summary
For the hundreds of migrant families from the Mongolian steppe that lost or sold every animal they once had and turned their sights on Ulaanbaatar in hopes of finding work to either build a new life or save enough money to return to herding (Save the Children 2013; UNESCAP 2009; Upton 2010), the reality of life in the city’s ‘ger district’ outskirts has often been harsh and unforgiving. Establishing new fenced homesteads (hashaa) on the unclaimed land on the outskirts of the city and negotiating the complex but flexible legal property regimes for registering their homes, either before or after their occupation, rural-urban migrants have expanded the city’s borders at an exponential rate (Byambadorj et al 2011). Named for their distinctive architectural form, the ger districts stretch out across Ulaanbaatar’s valleys and mountainsides, encircling the city centre to the west, north and east (Park et al 2019). Tion does not stop migration, instead incorporating welfare into an assemblage of subtle barriers aimed at making urban migration a less attractive prospect (Lindskog 2014: 884; Terbish et al 2020: 8)
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