In many Western countries, social welfare payments are increasingly being made conditional on recipients doing voluntary work or attending job training courses, a system known as "e;welfare-to-work"e; or "e;workfare"e;. Although social welfare in Asia is very different to the West, with much smaller social welfare budgets, a strong self-reliance and a much higher dependency on family networks to provide support, the workfare approach is also being adopted in many Asian countries. This is the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of how welfare reform around work is implemented in leading East Asian.Based on the experiences of seven East Asian economies - including China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau - this book critically analyses current trends; the social, economic and political factors which lead to the implementation of workfare; compares the similarities and differences of workfare in the different polities and assesses their effectiveness.

List of tables and figures List of abbreviations Preface About the contributors Part I: Introduction 1. Understanding Workfare in Western and East Asian Welfare States - Chak Kwan Chan Part II: Workfare in Seven East Asian Economies 2. Workfare in Mainland China: A Reaction to Welfare Dependency? - Kinglun Ngok, Wingkit Chan & Zhaiwen Peng 3. Workfare in Hong Kong - Joe C. B. Leung 4. From Workfare to Cash for All: The Politics of Welfare Reform in Macau - Alex H. Choi & Eva P.W. Hung 5. Workfare in Taiwan: From Social Assistance to Unemployment Absorber - Chin-fen Chang 6. Workfare in Japan - Shogo Takegawa 7. Workfare in South Korea: Delivering Unemployment Benefits in the Developmental Welfare State - Huck-ju Kwon & Jooha Lee 8. Workfare in Singapore - Irene Y.H. Ng Part III: Conclusion 9. Workfare in East Asia: Development & Characteristics - Chak Kwan Chan