The Social
Welfare Policy Guidelines
(Amended and proclaimed on February 13, 2004 by
the order of No. Yuan-tai-nei-tzu 0930081882 by Executive Yuan)
The social welfare policy
is one of our fundamental state policies as early as in 1965; “The Social
Policy in the Present Stage of the Principle of People’s Livelihood” was passed
as a guideline to synchronize economic and social development with the
industrialization of
In the 1990s, social
welfare development in
The function of social
welfare policy is to ensure peoples’ basic livelihood, promote stability and
harmony in the family, cooperation and solidarity in society, and enhance
quality in the work force and accumulation of economic capital and stability of
democratic polity. With the
intention of safe-guarding constitutionally guaranteed human rights in the face
of social, economic and political change; and in response to the people call
for a better social welfare system, this guidelines sets down the following
principles to promote greater security, health and dignity for the people of
1. The peoples’ wellbeing as a priority:
Policy must be
constructively initiated and carried out, guided by the peoples’ needs, to deal
practically with political, economic and social changes, with particular
emphasis on protection of the right to live of the disadvantaged and the under
privileged citizens.
2. Inclusion of the disadvantaged and underprivileged
citizens:
The state has to actively
step in preventing the people from discriminating, exploiting, deserting,
maltreating, injuring, and treated improperly, because of the differences in
age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, physical and psychological
condition, marriage, the social and economical status, and geographical
environment, so that the disadvantaged citizens may not be excluded by the society.
And respecting the disparity of diversified cultures, and promoting a
considerate, inclusive society.
3. Support for diversified families:
Policy must respect all
types of families regardless of their sexual orientation, race, martial
relationship, size or socio-economic status. In addition to supporting families
to function in terms of birth, education, cultivation, the government has to
assist disadvantaged families and aim to improve the quality of their lives.
4. Constructing sound social welfare system:
Policy should maintain
the peoples’ basic economic security through social insurance, safe-guard
dignity through social assistance, raise the standard of living through welfare
services, and stabilize incomes security and participation in society through
employment and unemployment insurance. Social（public） housing to eliminate
homelessness and the promotion of national health and quality of workforce through
health care will also be a priority . As well, policy will encourage
cohesiveness and a better living environment through community development.
5. Investment in active social welfare:
Negative relief will be
replaced by positive welfare. Human resources will be developed through social
investment. Economic growth will be promoted and based on social justice and
solidarity. The rationale of social policy is that the promotion of the quality
of peoples’ lives will result in economic development of the country as a whole.
6. Job division between central and local governments:
Central and local
governments should jointly promote social welfare on the basis of partnership.
The plans of all over the country is schemed and promoted by the central, and
the others that suit local circumstances, are the local’ responsibility to
scheme and execute. However, the central government should endeavor to minimize
regional injustices owing to disparities between urban and rural areas.
7. Partnership between public and private sectors:
The public sector should protect
the peoples’ welfare as regards basic subsistence, health, and dignity. The governments
should solicit the cooperation of the private sector through a cooperative
partnership to maintain social services.
8. Service based on local needs:
Children, teenagers, the
disabled, and the elderly will be cared for and protected in their homes first.
If necessary, supplemental care will be provided by the relevant institutions.
All services should be community-based, provided locally and humane in
accordance with the individual’s needs.
9. Integrated resources:
In order to improve service
quality at the administrative level, social welfare departments in charge of
health and social welfare must be integrated.
Based on international convention, the main contents
of social welfare policy are social insurance, social assistance, social
services, health care, employment services, social（public） housing and
education. And consider the historical tradition and the present practice of
social policy in Taiwan thus composed of six items: social insurance &
social allowance, social assistance, welfare services, employment security,
social（public） housing and
community development, and health care as the following:
I. Social insurance and
social allowance
(1)A national social security system should be
constructed by establishing social insurance as a priority, social allowance as
an auxiliary service and social assistance as the last resort.
(2)The aim of social insurance is to prevent economic
risks people face due to ageing, illness, birth, death, disability, industrial
accidents, unemployment or retirement; and to cover workers’ compensation, health
insurance, pensions and unemployment insurance.
(3)In order to ameliorate economic disparity,
social insurance must be attuned to individual and family income security as
well as the income re-distribution effect among various population groups, different
occupations and households.
(4)Except when the contributions for industrial
injury insurance is paid in full by the employer, the contributions of other
insurances are paid proportionally by the insured and their employer. The insured’s
share of the contribution shall not exceed that of the employer. In the case that
the insured has no employer and has to pay the contribution in full, a subsidy
will be paid by the government based on the principles of social justice and
equity. Our aim is to lend a helping hand to those with no income and the
economically disadvantaged.
(5)The appropriate amount of benefits dedicated to
social welfare must be considered: too little is harmful to the economic
security of the insured; too much adds to the financial burden.
(6)The level of benefits of universal social
insurance should not differ on grounds of occupation, sex, and income. The
disparity between benefit level and the replacement rate made by the benefit of
income related insurance, owing to the different occupation and income. The
government should intervene actively to make the disparity as little as
possible.
(7)The design of retirement benefit national participating in labor market should be based on social insurance principles of pension and portable seniority.
(8)In order to strengthen the finance of social
insurance, contribution rate, benefit level, payment system, management costs
should be evaluated completely and money avoid waste.
(9)The design of national pension system should sufficiently
protect national’s basic economics security due to contingencies such as old
age, disability, and death. And it should be based on the principles of mutual
help, social solidarity, and intergenerational reasonable re-distribution of
income.
(10)The social allowance is a scheme for those
contingencies of the social insurance fail to cover, and design for the
citizens special need, not based on income tested.
(11)The government should be clearly stipulated in
regulations that the functions differ in social insurance, social allowance,
and social assistance to avoiding repeat, excessive protection, fragment or
injustice.
II. Social assistance
(1)The aim of social assistance should be based on
the acceptable subsistence of the people in his residence area.
(2)The government should review the applicant’s qualifications,
benefits and the procedures of social assistance regularly to ensure that
citizens who are in need have adequate assistance.
(3)The state should help people of low income
accumulate the manpower capital and assets to escape from poor as soon as
possible.
(4)The state should offer people of low income
with multiple channels to take contribute to society, and enrich their social
resources.
(5)The government should set up a system that links
unemployment benefits and social assistance so as to retard economical hardship
of the unemployed and their families.
(6)Social welfare providers should combine social
assistance with the social service system in order to satisfy the multi-faceted
needs of low income families.
(7)The government must provide people who suffer
catastrophe with adequate assistance to rebuild their lives as soon as
possible.
III. Welfare services
(1)Because of differences in age, sex, condition
in body, race, religion, marital status, sexual orientation among the features
of social population, the government should take care of their diversified
health, protection, education, employment, social participation, development to
meet their requirement by getting united with families and the civil society,
providing appropriate service as to improve their development in body and/or
mind.
(2)Mutual agreements should be signed with other
nations to ensure the security and human rights of our expatriate citizens
regardless of their social status in nations where they reside.
(3)The state should provide the foreigners living
in our country because of marriage, job learning, traveling, with suitable
assistance and treatment.
(4)The state should supply those in vulnerable economy
of children, teens, disabled, aged, women, aborigines, cross-national married
couple, with project by case as to raise their life quality.
(5)All health and welfare services should be provided
based on the principles of accessibility, continuity, accountability, affordability,
and adequately satisfying the people’s needs.
(6)The government and the society should be united
to make efforts to establish the healthy families, schools, communities and
social environments for the human development of children and teens. They
should be protected by the government when their families are harmful to their
development in body and/or mind, and they are resettled to a suitable place
helpful to their growth. No matter those, at home or out of doors, are supported
by the government when their care-givers are in need of.
(7)The government should integrate all resources
at the disposal of social welfare, health care, education to offer the early
prevention for children.
(8)The government should guarantee children and
teens to have opportunities of education and care, and protect those who are in
unfavorable conditions of economy, culture, region, and race development by
extra assistance.
(9)The government should unite the private sector
to offer the opportunities and surroundings for teens to have self-esteem,
to belong to their own communities, to love fervently their lives, to cope
with the pressure of life, to learn how to maintain independence and self
autonomy, and to develop their potentiality.
(10)The government should actively set up access-free
communities and life surroundings.
(11)The government should assist the disabled to
get equal opportunities to access the services of education, employment, medical
treatment and welfare without any difficulty.
(12)Both the government and the private sector should
actively maintain dignity and autonomy for the aged, and also construct a
friendly life circumstances for them.
(13)The main methods to take care of the aged and
the disabled are home care service or community-based service, accompanied
by institutional service. If they are cared in their own family by the family
care-givers, the government should unite with the private sector to support
the care-givers as to maintain the quality of life.
(14)In order to ensure gender equal right of employment,
to eliminate the sexual discrimination and to promote the actual equality
between sexes, the state should set it into action to prevent from sexual
discrimination, sexual harassment, and equal right of employment between sexes.
(15)In order to raise the woman status in society,
economy, and politics, the government should get the education of gender equality
moving.
(16)In order to ensure the safety, dignity, and rights
of the victim, the government should set up laws and decrees to protect them
from injuring, and establish safety network of anti-violence.
(17)In order to match up the social change and government
re-building, the government should review the social welfare administration
organization; adjust reasonably the executive division of labor for social
welfare between the central and the local, and officials or staffs to dispose.
4. Employment security
(1)The government should strengthen to coordinate
and cooperate with all units of social services, labor affairs, educational
administration, and the aboriginal department, and set up a localized system
of employment service, as to strengthen to tie up with education and job training,
and to benefit the manpower and capital.
(2)The government should conform in the system of
unemployment benefit, vocational training, and employment service, strengthen
guidance and assistance for employment and job transfer, and circulate the
information channel of employment, as to promote employment matching and make
convenient for those who want to enroll the labor market.
(3)The government should protect labor standards
all in response to the tendency of flexible labor market.
(4)The government should protect laborers from employment
discrimination because of differences in race, language, thought, religion,
parties, birth place, sex, marital status, appearance, and sexual orientation,
condition in body and/or mind, and union membership in the past time.
(5)The government should enroll the prevention of
industrial injury by getting united with employers and employees and be of
assistance to those who have suffered from industrial injury and occupational
rehabilitation.
(6)The government should ensure those who are vulnerable
in the labor market such as the middle-aged, the aged, aborigines, the disabled,
low salary workers, and the women who have a burden of family livelihood,
and the probationers, the employment opportunities and job stability.
(7)Te be aimed at cultural characteristic of aboriginal
races and their diversified groups, the government should promote the vocational
training, employment service, and have the opportunities developed of employment
and an enterprise started to fit in with them.
(8)In order to promote people’s employment, the government
should encourage employers to employ home laborers excepting an insufficient
supply of home laborers, immigrant laborers have to be brought in.
5.Social（public）housing and community
development
(1) In order
to ensure the people who have proper house to live in, the government should
supply social housings to the low income family, the disabled, the aged alone
or living with his/her spouse, the women and her children who suffered from
domestic violence, aborigines, people live in disaster area, homeless, no matter
the celibate or with his/her family by means of long-term low interest loan for
buying a house or to build a house, in addition to grant them the allowance to
rent a house, or to rent the public house with the interest less than one in
the market, as to meet up their demands.
(2) The
government should encourage private sector to take part in various types of
social housing building and used as nonprofit-making by means of getting united
with private sector and various priority methods.
(3) The
government should divide to some ground for the benefits of social services
facilities to harmony with the urban renewal plan, and reserve vacancy from the
social housing as to be used as social welfare and community activities.
(4) The
government should subsidy families with low income repair their houses as to
maintain the quality of living acceptable to the community.
(5) The
government should guarantee the communities where social housing is located are
equipped with system of facilities of communication, information, and social
service, as to satisfy to residents’ demands.
(6) The
government should have planned for community and housing re-construction to
meet houses damages caused by great disasters if any.
(7) Governments
should encourage resident of community to take part in activities of the
community development, activation of community organization, and taking
advantage of local resources, to build a vital and self-autonomic civil
society.
(8) The
government should coordinate resources such as sight-seeing and traveling,
industry and commerce, agriculture and fishing, cultural industry, environment
protection, urban and rural development, ancient monuments maintenance,
education, health, social welfare as to promote sustainable development for the
community.
(9) The
government should get united with the aboriginal culture and their ecological
characteristic as to promote the gross construction of the new tribal units.
6. Health care
(1) The government should take it as granted to
construct healthy cities and towns, and to form such a living circumstance to
better residents in body and mind.
(2) The
government should actively set it into action to promote national public health
work, to make administration of mass health behavior and life practicable as to
prevent from diseases and better their health.
(3) The
government should conform resources of medical treatment and public health in
the whole community, raise the quality of medical treatment at all, and to
develop the high quality, security, and accessible system of medical treatment,
in accordance with the needs of the community.
(4) The
government should set up a system of prevention from infectious diseases based
on the scope of the community, strengthen to announce and prevent, and strictly
sift them from entering outside lest the diseases should scatter about.
(5) The
government should set up a service system of mental health based on the
community as to promote multilevel prevention work.
(6) The
government should take advantage of pharmaceutical service and resources to set
up a unified management system of medicine and food, as to protect security of
the mass from drinking water and taking medicine.
(7) The
government should set up a management system to monitor all regulated medicine
as to prevent from being misused and to maintain the national health.
(8) The
government should encourage medical industry to take part in the bioscience and
its technology, establish quality standard of biological medical treatment and
its technology, better the surroundings of clinical experiment, and promote
standard of national health.
(9) The
government should get united with the non-governmental organization to promote
interflow and cooperation in medical treatment and technology with foreign
countries, as to raise the medical treatment and health care of our own
country.