大学英语：social welfare

1、Chinas Social Welfare The Chinese government actively promotes the development of social welfare, raising funds through various channels to provide social welfare benefits for the elderly, orphans and the disabled. Social Welfare for the Elderly In accordance with the “Law of the Peoples Republic of

2、 China on the Protection of Elderly Peoples Rights and Interests,” the state and the society have adopted measures to improve conditions for such peoples livelihood, health and participation in social development. Governments at all levels include services for elderly people in their socio-economic

3、development plans, gradually increase investments in services for elderly people, and encourage investment from all sectors of society, so as to enable such services to grow in coordination with socio-economic development. In recent years, thanks to the promotion of the socialization of social welfa

4、re undertakings, a social service system for elderly people has gradually taken shape, with state- and collective-run social welfare organizations for elderly people as the backbone, those sponsored by various social sectors as a new growth point, community welfare services for elderly people as sup

5、port, and services for elderly people living at home as the basis. Today, there are 38,000 social welfare organizations of various kinds for elderly people, with 1.129 million beds, or 8.4 beds for every 1,000 people over the age of 60. In 2001, the state introduced the “Starlight Plan National Comm

6、unity Welfare Service for Elderly People.” By June 2004, a total of 32,000 Starlight Homes for Elderly People had been built or rebuilt in urban and rural areas all over China, with a total investment of 13.49 billion yuan. Social Welfare for Children According to relevant laws and regulations, such

7、 as the “Law of the Peoples Republic of China on the Protection of Minors” and the “Education Law of the Peoples Republic of China,” the state provides comprehensive welfare for children, including education and planned immunization, and takes special care to ensure the livelihood, recovery and educ

8、ation of children with special difficulties, such as disabled children, orphans and abandoned babies, by providing welfare projects, facilities and services. Today, China has 192 special welfare institutions for children and 600 comprehensive welfare institutions with a childrens department, accommo

9、dating a total of 54,000 orphans and disabled children. There are also nearly 10,000 community services around China for orphans and disabled people, such as rehabilitation centers and training classes for mentally retarded children. The Chinese government has decided that, starting from 2004, it is

10、 going to carry out the “Tomorrow Plan Operations and Rehabilitation for Disabled Orphans.” The plan will cover a three-year period and involve 600 million yuan in fund. Under the plan, each year 10,000 disabled orphans will receive operations and rehabilitation services. The aim is that by 2006 all

11、 the disabled orphans with surgical operation indications in all the social welfare institutions around China will have received effective operations and rehabilitation services. Social Welfare for Disabled People The “Law of the Peoples Republic of China on the Protection of Disabled People” promul

12、gated by the state provides legal guarantees for disabled peoples rehabilitation, (康复) education, employment, cultural life and social welfare. The government helps disabled people to get employment by running welfare enterprises, providing employment opportunities in a certain proportion, and suppo

13、rting the self-employment of disabled people. Special care for disabled people is provided through such welfare measures as temporary aid, concentrated support and the running of accommodation institutions for disabled people. By the end of 2003, a total of over 4.03 million disabled people in urban

14、 areas around China were in employment, and 16.85 million disabled people in rural areas were engaged in productive labor; 2.59 million impoverished （穷困的）disabled people enjoyed guarantees for their livelihood; 442,000 disabled people enjoyed concentrated support and the “five guarantees” (of food,

15、clothing, medicare, housing and burial expenses) in various welfare institutions and homes for the aged; 2.46 million disabled people were receiving temporary aid, regular allowances and special allowances; and over 7.01 million impoverished disabled people were receiving assistance to solve their p

16、roblem of basic food and clothing. In 2003, governments at all levels earmarked 1.5 billion yuan for services for the disabled, and raised nearly 100 million yuan for social welfare funds.Germans Social WelfareTHE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL POLICY in Germany has followed a unique historical path. During

17、a long process of growth and social experimentation, Germany combined a vigorous and highly competitive capitalist economy with a social welfare system that, with some exceptions, has provided its citizens cradle-to-grave security. The systems benefits are so extensive that by the 1990s annual total

18、 spending by the state, employers, and private households on health care, pensions, and other aspects of what Germans call the social safety net amounted to roughly DM1 trillion (for value of the deutsche mark-see Glossary) and accounted for about one-third of the countrys gross national product (GN

19、P-see Glossary). Unlike many of the worlds advanced countries, however, Germany does not provide its citizens with health care, pensions, and other social welfare benefits through a centralized state-run system. Rather, it provides these benefits via a complex network of national agencies and a larg

20、e number of independent regional and local entities-some public, some quasi-public, and many private and voluntary. Many of these structures date from the nineteenth century, and some from much earlier.The legislation that established the basis of this system dates from the 1880s and was passed by i

21、mperial Germanys parliament, the Reichstag, with the dual purpose of helping German workers meet lifes vicissitudes （兴衰，浮沉） and thereby making them less susceptible （易受影响的）to socialism. This legislation set the main principles that have guided the development of social policy in Germany to the prese

22、nt day: membership in insurance programs is mandated by law; the administration of these programs is delegated （委派，放权）to nonstate bodies with representatives of the insured and employers; entitlement to benefits is linked to past contributions rather than need; benefits and contributions are related

23、 to earnings; and financing is secured through wage taxes levied on （征收） the employer and the employee and, depending on the program, sometimes through additional state financing.These insurance programs were developed from the bottom up. They first covered elements of the working class and then ext

24、ended coverage to ever broader segments of the population and incorporated additional risks. Over time, these programs came to provide a wide net of entitlements to those individuals having a steady work history.By international standards, the German welfare system is comprehensive and generous. How

25、ever, not everyone benefits equally. In the mid-1990s, the so-called safety net was deficient for the lower-income strata and the unemployed. It was also inadequate for persons needing what Germans term social aid, that is, assistance in times of hardship. In 1994, for example, 4.6 million persons n

26、eeded social aid, a 100 percent increase since the 1980s. Germans who had been citizens of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany), which became part of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany) in 1990, tend to be overrepresented in each of these groups.Women are m

27、ore at a disadvantage than any other social group. This fact stems from the bias of German social insurance programs in favor of a male breadwinner model; most women receive social and health protection by virtue of their dependent status as spouse. Hence, despite the existence of a comprehensive in

28、terlocking social net, women face inequalities in accruing （自然增加）benefits in their own right because of periods spent rearing children or caring for an elderly parent. Divorced women also fare poorly because of the welfare systems provisions, as do widows, whose pensions are low.In addition to these

29、 problems or shortcomings, Germanys social welfare and health programs have had to contend with the unification of the former West Germany and East Germany in 1990. West Germanys approach to social insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance (which did not exist in the former GDR), accident

30、insurance, and social aid and assistance has been applied to East Germany. This fact has meant that the complex and heterogeneous（不同种类的） organizational and financial arrangements present in the former West Germany to deliver health and social services have had to be built up in the former East Germa

31、ny, in many cases entirely from scratch.（从头开始）The need for this extension of social welfare programs follows logically from the former East Germanys transition to a free-market economy in which employment, health care, and social insurance benefits have always been highly contingent （视而定的）upon each

32、other. In the absence of an East German democratic tradition and attitudes supportive of the new institutions and, as well, of adequate private organizational resources and skilled manpower, Germanys attempt to integrate two entirely different systems of social protection, education, and health care

33、 purely by means of law, administrative provisions, and financial resources is bound to produce problems for years to come.In the mid-1990s, representatives of Germanys political parties, businesses, unions, and voluntary social services agencies continued to wage a vigorous debate over social polic

34、y. At issue is the role to be played by state and/or nongovernmental voluntary charitable agencies, churches, and other social service providers and how to find a politically acceptable mix of public and private institutions. Ever since the nineteenth century, especially during periods of economic a

35、nd social crisis, there has been a recurrent demand to shift from insurance-based programs to a universal flat-rate and tax-financed program in order to secure a minimum income for all. However, there has never been sufficient political support for eliminating insurance-based programs. In the postwa

36、r period, business groups and the Christian Democratic Union (Christlich Demo-kratische Union-CDU), with the exception of the left wing within the CDU, tended to support the continued segmentation of the labor force into separate insurance-based programs for various occupational groups. In contrast,

37、 the labor unions and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemo-kratische Partei Deutschlands-SPD) tended to support unitary programs for the entire labor force.The great costs of unification have raised the possibility of ending the steady expansion of social welfare programs that had been

38、 going on for more than a century. The current conservative governing coalition （合并）has proposed reductions in benefits to finance unification. Other factors such as the increasingly competitive global economy and structural changes in the labor market have also raised questions about the continued

39、affordability of German social policy. As a result, the government is increasingly listening to employers who insist that their share of employee benefit payments be reduced in order that German business remain competitive in a global economy.The integration of the two entirely different education s

40、ystems that emerged after the 1945 division of the country has also raised many controversial issues. No consensus（一致通过） has emerged on whether Germany should adopt the unified school system found in the former East Germany or the heterogeneous three-tiered system of the former West Germany. Nor is

41、there consensus on whether to increase the number of school years by one year for students in eastern Germany or to reduce the thirteen years of schooling in western Germany to twelve years. A greater uniformity within the countrys education system is also needed because the plethora （过多， 和plenty联想记

42、忆） of school tracks and the diversity of curricula and qualifying examinations might indeed endanger the mobility of students and teachers within Germany and within Europe in general.美国社会福利制度美国现行的社会安全制度包括：年老(退休)保险(OLD AGE INSURANCE)、医疗保险(MEDICAL INSURANCE)、残疾保险(DISABILITY INSURANCE、遗族（即死者家属）保险(SURVI

43、VORS INSURANCE)、失业救济(UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION)和公共救济与福利(PUBLIC ASSISTANCE AND WELFARE)六个主要项目，这些救济经费的来源主要是民众的捐税。社会安全税则由雇主和雇员各分担一半，这些钱由政府征集后设立基金供各项福利措施支用。 (A)年老退休保险当年满六十五岁，正式从服务的公司(必须是参加社会安全制度的公司)退休时可以获得全额的国民保险年金，如果六十二岁就想退休时，可以获得八成的年金，如果被保人死亡其遗族可以获得给付，当然给付金的数目视情况而定。 (B)医疗保险接受社会安全制度之医疗保险者可以享受住院(或疗养院)治疗

44、90天以内不收费的保险，但不包括医生的治疗费用，不过65岁以上的公民每月仅花少许的额外保费，即可获得该类保险。 另外有一项医疗保险措施系由联邦与州政府(亚利桑那州除外)共同为无力支付医疗费用的公民承担其医疗费用。 (C)残疾保险如果工人在一年或更长时间内无法工作时，可以获得与年老退休者相同的年金；如果该工人系因工作时受了伤害以致无法工作时，可以获得额外的员工伤残补助金。这项补助金的保险费用是由雇主负担，同时这项保险制度归州政府管理，不在联邦社会安全法案的范围内。 (D)遗族保险当工人死亡时，其遗族可以获得按月津贴，给付金额视该工人之收入、子女数与年龄而定。 (E)失业救济失业工人在找到新工作这

45、前每周可以获得失业补助金，原则上不超过三十九个星期。这项补助措施是由州政府根据联邦政府的要求办理，补助金额因州而异。一般而言，每周不会超过一百元。 (F)公共救济社会安全法案允许联邦政府支援各州政府去照顾需要接受救济者，尤其是那些有学龄儿童的贫困家庭，同时也对无力负担医疗费用的穷人提供医疗救济。 社会安全制度实行至今，毁誉参半，反对者谴责接受救济者懒惰、不知进取。他们认为花了大笔钱却仍无法消除贫穷，那不如把这项制度废除掉，美国前总统里根就持着这种主张。加拿大社会福利制度加拿大有着完善的社会福利制度，永久居民可以享受如下福利：1.子女免费教育：只要年龄在5-19岁之间的女子都能享受从幼儿园到十二

46、年级的免费教育。大学教育（包括研究生教育）：学费远远低于外国留学生，大约是留学生的30%-40%。2.儿童福利金：加拿大政府向所有未满18岁的儿童提供儿童福利金（俗称牛奶金）。具体金额根据各个家庭的收入而定。福利金无需交税。3.老年基本福利补贴：凡65岁以上低收入或无收入的老人都可以申请这一项基本收入补贴。4.养老金计划：养老金计划是一种保险，受益人在其工作期间须交付一定的钱给该计划，退休后按月受益。受益的金额取决于受益人曾交付的金额。5.失业救济保险：如您工作了一定的时间并交付了失业救济保险费，您在失业时就可申请领取失业救济保险，同时可以免费参加一些就业再培训计划。6.长期失业救济：给那些长期失业者提供食物、住房、燃料（汽油和煤气）、衣物和药费等基本生活开支。7.工伤补贴：加拿大对工作中受伤的人员提供财政、医疗和康复等方面的补贴，申请人可凭医疗报告和因工受伤证明向政府有关部门申请。8.免费医疗保险：加拿大是世界上医疗保健制度最完善的国家。基本上每个社区都有很好的医院或诊所。参加此保险计划后，可以得到免费医疗服务，包括：就诊费、各种化验、监察、手术费（住院费、伙食及护理费）等等全部