From Productivism to Post-Productivism: Unpacking the Socio-Economic Conditions for Welfare Development in Six East Asian Economies

Twenty-five years ago, Ian Holliday introduced the ‘Productivist Welfare Capitalism’ (PWC) thesis in Political Studies, challenging the classification of the East Asian welfare regime alongside Western models. Debate persists over whether East Asian societies still fit the ‘productivist’ label or how to define a potential ‘post-productivist’ era. This article examines five causal conditions – economic growth, population ageing, economic globalisation, unemployment and deindustrialisation – to analyse the factors driving welfare development in mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), it finds that since the turn of the century (2000–2021), economic growth is no longer a prerequisite for welfare expansion in these economies, challenging the basic tenet of the PWC thesis. Instead, population ageing and integration into the global economy have driven welfare expansion across East Asia, reflecting a general transformation towards addressing emergent welfare needs in the region.