States Responses to Social Welfare in China and India: A Comparative Study of the Workers in Small and Medium Enterprises

Since embarked on market reforms, the state in China and India has evolved different strategies in addressing the question of social welfare. The proposed project seeks to examine the Chinese and Indian state vis-à-vis its responses and approaches towards social welfare in institutional terms, in the context of the changing economic visions of the governments that had direct implications for the ‘permanent employment, job security and other kind of welfare that was available to the industrial working class. The study aims at analyzing the institutional approaches in addressing the concerns of industrial workers and discerning the implications of the state's reconfiguration of its welfare framework. Examining the interface between the state and the industrial workers in the Small and Medium Enterprises vis-a-vis labour relations and welfare, the proposed research apart from the assessing the impact of market reforms on the state-led welfare systems, would also focus upon the contending debates among scholars and intellectuals within both countries. Studying the new policies and institutions that have emerged following the increasing entrenchment of market forces, the specifics of the Chinese and Indian experiences and their successes/failures would be probed to identify the convergences or divergences that lie therein.

PK Anand, Research Associate, ICS