Revising Social Policy: Reform of Taiwan’s Labor Insurance System
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Wu, Hsing-Lung
Abstract
Labor Insurance financial crisis occurred in 2012. According to the Labor Insurance financial report published in September 2011, labor insurance fund will go bankrupt, the optimum rate should be 27.84% the next 50 years but the current (2015) rate is only 9% (Plus Employment Insurance premiums, totaled 10%). If the rate of Labor insurance premiums remains too low, Labor Insurance Fund won’t make ends meet in 2018, and it will go bankrupt in 2027. The report triggered a public confident crisis for Labor Insurance, many insured apply for retirement payment. The incident made the Ministry of Labor began to amend the law of Labor Insurance. The Executive Yuan submitted a formal revised draft to the Legislative Yuan on April 25, 2013, but the draft has not been approved yet. In this paper, I want to explore the role of government, labor groups and commercial organizations in the amendment of Labor Insurance during 2013. How did they influence the decision-making process? How effective is it? I tried to understand different actors’ ideas by collecting news, the draft law of Labor Insurance, the record of Legislative Yuan, and interviewing with the officials of Ministry of Labor, Bureau of Labor, and representatives of labor groups. How did they influence the Labor Insurance amendment? On the other hand, the rise of social forces after Taiwan''s democratization, government autonomy is not as good as in the past, especially the sum of insured of Labor Insurance is more than nine hundred million people. Can such a huge social force influence government decisions? In this study, I found that the government''s performance in the amendment meets what Theda Skocpol said, the government played an important role in the decision-making process. Faced with labor groups, the government only made little concession. The government indeed had its own ideas and will despite of that the government did not get social support. According to the national autonomy analysis of Nordlinger, the government presented in this amendment is ""independent state "". Even though the amendment failed in the Legislature Yuan, the government still showed its will. In contrast, labor groups were more passive in the decision-making process, they only invited to participate in a public conference held by the government, or petitioned through local legislators.
Subjects
labor insurance
decision-making
state autonomy
government
labor group
SDGs
Type
thesis
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