In Taiwan, different from the prediction of theory of modernization, its public pension system does not completely develop with economic development. It was until the advent of democratization of the early 1990s that Taiwan's government decided to initiate an ambitious pension expansion plan to catch up with advanced welfare states. This is the so-called national pension reform ever hoped by many Taiwanese to ensure old-age security. But after that Taiwan's national pension reform gained little progress. Even though the self-professed welfare defender- Democratic Progress Party (DPP) took power in the 2000 president election, new government also could not find way out of reform impasse. In reality, there have been incompatible ideas and competing political interests amidst national pension reform. But most of existing studies seem to focus much on party competition and give scant attention to this phenomenon (Lee, 1996; Cheng et al, 1999; Lin, 2000; Shih, 2001; Fu, 2000; Chen, 2002 and 2005; Chen 2004; Chang, 2003; Lou and Chen, 2005; Cheng, 2004; Yeh, 2005; Lin, 2005). Moreover, making story complicated, the seemingly no- hope national pension legislation was unexpectedly passed in the Legislative Yuan in 2007. The latter policy development has apparently made many seemingly plausible explanations of pension predicament lose their explanatory power at present time.
In order to answer the above intriguing problems, this article emphasizes the importance of policy legacies in shaping interests and ideas of relevant policy actors. But different from previous studies, I broaden the concept of policy heritage to include functional alternatives to state pensions. In this respect, a specialized term- old-age security mix (OASM) is coined to refer to the configuration of these components. Basically, this article will be organized as follows: The first section discusses the specialties of Taiwan's national pension reform, whereas the second part develops our argument about why to incorporate OASM in Taiwan's case study. I then grasp the characteristics of Taiwan's OASM and track its change since the mid 1980s. The final section sums up how the features of OASM might affect Taiwan's national pension reform over the past 14 years.
Full paper download: Lin Y_faltering pension reform.pdf