Understanding Welfare Diversity and Evolution In Japan, Korea, and China. A Regulationist Interpretation

In this paper, which focuses on Japan, Korean and China, we argue that these previous analyses of Asian capitalisms have underestimated or ignored in-depth analyses of Asian capitalisms from the viewpoint of welfare, in adopting, at least implicitly, a perspective, inspired by the over-simplified typology of Esping Andersen, which can be qualified of “welfare orientalism” (Takegawa, 2005). Moreover, we argue that welfare is at the core of the evolving forms of capitalism in these three countries. Our interpretation is that institutional change in Asian capitalism is currently driven by changes in the social compromise. These three economies are experiencing a series of changes that can be interpreted as the manifestations of internal contradictions, which require the development of new welfare systems to be overcome. Among these changes, this paper focuses on the ones that affected such institutions as family and firms, as well as ageing, and rising inequalities.

The purpose of this article is to show that effective social policies are the necessary condition in these three countries to promote the emergence of a new “regulation mode” able to overcome the current contradictions at work. As emphasized by Boyer et al. (2001), these three economies indeed virtually suffer from the adverse consequences of export-led growth regimes. At the level of each country, a new basic compromise should concern the wage-labor nexus, for the sake of both social justice and dynamic efficiency. New forms of welfare are emerging in Asian capitalisms, as political answers to demands from various groups. They may become a distinctive feature of these forms of capitalisms but also the main source of divergence among them.