Introduction: Gender and Welfare States in East Asia

Abstract

This book aims to uncover gender assumptions of welfare states that are very different from Western ones, and to understand women’s experience of welfare states across a range of East Asian countries. Gender inequalities in East Asian social policies are clearly important for women across East Asia, and yet they have had too little attention in the literature comparing welfare states. The comparative literature has largely been concerned with Western Welfare states, whether in The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Esping-Andersen 1990), or in gender-based analysis of the male breadwinner model (Lewis 1992, 2001, 2006). Are the welfare systems of East Asian countries distinctive, with Confucian cultural assumptions hidden beneath the surface commitment to gender equality? While economies have been developing rapidly, are social policies becoming less traditional in their expectations of women? East Asian welfare regimes have been studied since the late 1980s, but research questioning their underpinning gender assumptions is new.KeywordsWelfare StateGender EqualityEast Asian CountryWelfare RegimeSocial SpendingThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.