Familisation and defamilisation processes of social safety net: Low-income families’ welfare participation experiences in Shanghai and Taipei

Abstract

This study used the conceptual lens of familisation and defamilisation to examine how different social safety net policy instruments shape low-income family processes. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 welfare recipients in Shanghai and Taipei. The study reveals unique patterns under non-Western and low-income contexts. Means-tested cash transfers inadvertently reinforced familisation processes; defamilisation tendencies were observed in subsidies and services tailored for children and parents, and a hybrid process emerged from employment support. Given that low-income families value both defamilisation and familisation measures, the study highlights the critical need for social safety net policies to balance these components.

Keywords

Defamilisation familisation low-income family social safety net welfare participation experience

Introduction

East Asian (EA) welfare systems strongly emphasise the welfare functions of the family (Ochiai, 2009). However, low-income families struggle to maintain family functions due to limited resources (Daly, 2018). The social safety net (SSN), comprising a range of non-contributory programmes implemented by governments and third-sector organisations to alleviate poverty, provides crucial support for low-income families and includes various policy tools, such as cash transfers, in-kind benefits, fee waivers, targeted subsidies, public works and service provisions, that can exert multifaceted influences on recipient families and individual family members. Welfare benefits can enhance income for the entire family and provide stronger protection to families; however, individuals may experience additional pressure when applying for and allocating benefits within the families (Zhang and Tan, 2023). Given these contradictory forces, identifying how varying policy designs of the SSN package impact low-income family processes is crucial.

Theoretically, SSN can shape family life through two opposing forces: familisation and defamilisation (Zagel and Lohmann, 2021). (De)familisation refers to the extent to which social welfare enables people to maintain their well-being without relying on the family or fulfilling family roles (Bambra, 2007; Daly, 2011; Lister, 1990; Lohmann and Zagel, 2016). Familisation policies can strengthen the family’s ability to care for one another and encourage individuals to seek family support. As familial culture is engrained in EA societies, maintaining family functions can contribute to social stability. Defamilisation policies are intended to substitute the family’s welfare function and promote individual autonomy through public welfare provisions (Lou and Wang, 2016; Motel-Klingebiel et al., 2005). Independence from family relationships can be essential to an individual’s well-being (Cho, 2014; Lewis, 1992), especially for children and women who often hold disadvantaged positions in the family hierarchy (Cho, 2014).

Familisation and defamilisation mechanisms can coexist within the comprehensive configuration of SSN, with the choice of different policy designs determining the dominant mechanism. Familisation measures include the benefits and services granted to the family as a unit, support for part-time employment for mothers and subsidies to family care. Conversely, defamilisation measures feature the provision of allowances or tax credits to children, promoting women’s roles as workers, and providing childcare services outside the home (Daly, 2011). This classification is based on Western research on general family policies but has not been examined in Eastern and low-income contexts.

Against this backdrop, this study explored how various policy interventions shape family processes by examining low-income families’ welfare participation experiences in Shanghai and Taipei, specifically focusing on whether a particular policy tool leads individuals to become more dependent on their families to meet welfare needs or more independent.

This study addressed three significant research gaps. First, studies on familisation and defamilisation policies predominantly focus on ‘supply-side’ issues (Chau and Yu, 2021), examining the types of policy measures offered. Less attention has been paid to ‘demand-side’ issues and welfare recipients’ subjective experiences and perceptions (Chau and Yu, 2021; Zhang and Tan, 2023). Understanding welfare recipients’ perspectives is crucial for implementing effective and responsive social welfare policies. Second, existing research conceptualises familisation and defamilisation processes based on general family contexts. However, low-income and high-income families’ livelihood strategies differ significantly. Financial constraints compel low-income individuals to rely more on collective efforts within the family to meet basic needs and develop distinct strategies for autonomy. Finally, this study enriches the discussion about familisation and defamilisation in non-Western welfare regimes, thereby offering a more nuanced understanding of these processes in different cultural and economic contexts.

Social safety nets in Shanghai and Taipei

Shanghai and Taipei are metropolises known for rapid modernisation and decreasing fertility rates. Increasing economic pressure and the declining role of families make it increasingly difficult for family caregivers to fulfil the dual responsibilities of caregiving and earning a wage (Chiu and Wong, 2009). Low-income families are especially vulnerable to this dual pressure. Against this backdrop, SSN programmes are essential to help low-income people maintain their families.

Shanghai and Taipei have developed different SSN benefit packages and institutional arrangements to address income disparities and support vulnerable people. Means-tested cash transfers are a fundamental pillar of SSN. Mainland China has built a comprehensive social assistance system, including the Minimum Livelihood Guarantee (‘Dibao’) and classified assistance programmes. Dibao, as the largest means-tested cash transfer programme, provides a living allowance to households whose monthly per capita income falls below a locally determined minimum living standard. Shanghai first initiated the Dibao programme in 1993 and, therefore, provides an exemplar for investigating SSN in Mainland China. The Dibao threshold in Shanghai was CNY1160 at the end of 2019. In Taiwan, the Public Assistance Act, passed in 1980, supports low-income families. Benefits were extended to middle-low-income families in 2011 (Wang et al., 2021). Households with a monthly per capita income below 60 percent of the median per capita disposable income qualify as low-income (TWD16,580 in Taipei in 2019), while the threshold for middle-low-income status is set at 150 percent of this amount. Both groups must also meet asset limits. Public assistance includes living support, medical subsidies, emergency aid, housing assistance, education support and employment assistance. Households are divided into 3–5 groups for varying subsidy levels, with additional support for children, people with disabilities and older adults. Despite the rapid growth of SSN in Mainland China and limited expansion in Taiwan since the 1990s, the current monthly Dibao standard in Shanghai has lagged behind Taipei’s living allowance.

In addition to government programmes, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and voluntary agencies also provide services to low-income families. In Mainland China, simplified registration procedures have contributed to a rapid increase in the number of social organisations since 2013, although state authorities still regulate the third sector’s involvement in SSN (Shi, 2017). Compared with Shanghai, Taipei’s vibrant third sector provides a substantial proportion of social services based on the government’s subvention or self-raised funding (Du and Guan, 2019), offering more options for support for those on low-income people.

Shanghai and Taipei share similar social-economic circumstances but different SSN, reflecting diversity within EA welfare regimes. Investigating welfare participation experiences in Shanghai and Taipei offers novel insights into how distinct policy designs impact family lives. Social workers play a key role in supporting family well-being, advocating for change, and shaping policies and services, making this topic highly relevant to both social policy design and social work practice.

Conceptualising the social safety net and (de)familisation

Theoretical construct of (de)familisation

The constructs of familisation and defamilisation examine the extent to which social welfare allows individuals to maintain socially acceptable living standards, independent of family relationships, either through paid work or public welfare provisions (Daly, 2011; Lister, 1990; Lohmann and Zagel, 2016). Familisation policies foster dependency among family members. Defamilised welfare allows people to choose whether and how to fulfil their family care obligations (Lohmann and Zagel, 2016).

Familisation and defamilisation originally emerged from feminist critiques of the decommodification dimension of Esping-Andersen’s (1990) welfare state model (Cho, 2014; Lewis, 1992; Orloff, 1993). Decommodification denotes the extent to which social rights permit people to maintain their living at a socially acceptable level without reliance on the labour market (Esping-Andersen, 1990). Feminists have criticised decommodification for primarily focusing on paid jobs while ignoring the unequal gender division of unpaid domestic labour (Cho, 2014; Lister, 1990; Lohmann and Zagel, 2016; Orloff, 1993). The traditional ‘male breadwinner model’ (Lewis, 2001) denies women the freedom to choose whether and how to participate in family care (Lewis, 2001; Yu et al., 2020). Therefore, a decommodified welfare system is insufficient for women’s independence (Cho, 2014), and a defamilisation dimension must be included when examining welfare regimes.

Theoretical concerns about familisation and defamilisation have evolved beyond women-focused studies to encompass interactions among all family members. An ‘adult worker model’ has emerged with women’s increased access to paid employment (Daly, 2011; Yu et al., 2020), eliminating the gender division of labour force participation and treating all family members as autonomous individuals. Both men and women are encouraged to achieve self-sufficiency by participating in the labour market instead of depending on their families (Daly, 2011; Lewis, 2001). However, without adequate support, the demanding care needs of young children and dependent older family members remain a barrier to caregiver employment (Cho, 2014). Consequently, breadwinners are at risk of bearing the dual responsibility of providing care and earning a wage (Chiu and Wong, 2009). The theoretical scope of familisation and defamilisation has been extended to incorporate a broader range of activities and interactions to address the increasing pressure on family care responsibilities (Lohmann and Zagel, 2016).

(De)familisation policies

Daly (2011) conceptualised four dimensions to distinguish familisation and defamilisation policies: (1) treatment of people as individuals or as family members for granting access to social rights; (2) location of care (at home or outside the home) and its treatment as paid or unpaid; (3) how the policy constructs the family as a social institution; and (4) whether and how the policy addresses gender inequality. Typical familisation policies include support for part-time employment, subsidies for sole-earner households, subsidies for family care, parental leave benefits and survivor pensions. Such familisation measures idealise full-time caregivers for family care. Conversely, defamilisation policies include requirements or support for women’s labour participation, allowances, tax credits to subsidise child expenses, and childcare services outside the home (Daly, 2011; Lohmann and Zagel, 2016; Yu et al., 2017). Defamilisation measures are also considered work–family reconciliation measures (Chau et al., 2017) that expect adults to assume a worker role and facilitate their financial independence from the family (Daly, 2011). From a social rights perspective, people gain access to the benefits of familisation measures when they fulfil a certain role as a family member, whereas entitlement to defamilisation measures is based on individual citizenship.

The above classification of familisation and defamilisation policies is based on a broad range of family, employment and social welfare policies. SSN uses similar policy tools, such as cash subsidies and employment and parenting support. However, the nexus between SSN and familisation/defamilisation experiences, particularly those of low-income families, has not been systematically explored (Chau and Yu, 2021; Zagel and Lohmann, 2021). Because low-income families have restricted resources to construct their family lives, family obligations can impose more pressure on caregivers (Daly, 2018). Consequently, SSN may influence low-income families’ lives to a greater extent than other social policies for non-poor families. In addition, the formulation of some SSN measures is not intended to address gender inequality issues as do most family policies. Nevertheless, SSN measures, such as employment support services, can inadvertently affect women’s labour force participation. It is important to identify the potential unintended consequences of selected SSN policy tools on low-income families’ relationships to inform the review and amendment of existing welfare policy designs.

Comparative welfare studies suggest that conservative regimes exhibit familisation features, socially democratic regimes show defamilisation characteristics and liberal regimes possess both (Han, 2014; Kang, 2019). However, these Western typologies do not fit EA welfare settings, which are rooted in a strong familism tradition (Holliday, 2005). EA welfare regimes built on Confucian cultural heritage are traditionally marked by low defamilisation. Despite familism values continuing to permeate family life, EA governments have increasingly introduced family support measures and involved third-sector agencies in providing social services, resulting in heterogeneous familisation/defamilisation characteristics in EA countries (Chau and Yu, 2012).

Methods

This study deductively tested pre-existing conceptual frameworks of familisation and defamilisation based on non-Western and low-income contexts, adopting a neo-positivist approach of qualitative research (Miller, 2000).

Participants

Using a purposive sampling method, this study involved low-income household heads with the inclusion criteria of currently having at least one dependent child, having experienced falling into and/or getting out of poverty, and having received government and/or third-sector support. Each participant has to satisfy these three criteria. Participants were recruited from a wide range of agencies serving low-income families, including street offices, local social welfare centres and NGOs. Agency staff undertook screening to identify and help contact eligible participants. Recruitment began 2 weeks before interviews commenced and continued until the data reached thematic saturation (Saunders et al., 2018). Twenty-eight participants were recruited.

Table 1 summarises participants’ sociodemographic characteristics. In both locations, participants were in their 40s and 50s, with a higher percentage of women despite recruitment efforts for diversity. A greater proportion of Shanghai participants were unemployed than in Taipei. More than half of the Taipei participants were single parents due to divorce or widowhood; conversely, more Shanghai participants were married. Most Shanghai participants had one child, likely due to the one-child policy, whereas most Taipei participants had more than three children. The proportions of low-income, middle-to-low-income and welfare-leaver participants in both Shanghai and Taipei were roughly similar. All participants received government support; however, more Taipei participants also received assistance from third-sector organisations.

Table 1.

Sociodemographic characteristics of research participants in Shanghai and Taipei in 2019.

		Taipei (N = 14)	Shanghai (N = 14)
Individual characteristics
Age range		43–57	39–53
Gender	Male	2	5
Gender	Female	12	9
Employment status	Unemployed	7	9
	Employed (formally and informally)	7	3
	Retired	0	2
Marital status	Married (or digamous)	3	7
	Divorced	8	6
	Widowed	3	1
Household characteristics
Number of children	1	1	12
	2	3	2
	3 and above	10	0
Current welfare types	Low-income	5	7
	Middle-to-low-income	2	1
	Welfare-leaver	7	6
Sources of welfare support	Only government	6	12
	Government and third sectors	8	2

Data collection

Semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2019. Welfare participants’ subjective experiences at the micro-level offered a tangible reflection of cultural norms, policy contexts and policy practices within EA welfare regimes at the macro-level. In contrast to macro-level ‘official narratives’ or quantitative summaries, the micro-level narratives of welfare recipients’ subjective experiences remain a neglected voice in policy-making and academic research (Zhang and Tan, 2023). To capture how familisation and defamilisation processes are enacted and experienced within EA welfare regimes, the interviews were guided by open-ended questions covering: (1) background information on family arrangements, key family events and coping strategies for financial difficulties; (2) processes of receiving government and third-sector organisation support; and (3) subjective evaluations of the support received from different agencies and its impact on individual and family lives.

Interviews were conducted by social welfare researchers in Chinese at locations chosen by participants, without social workers or welfare officers responsible for the interviewees’ cases, to ensure privacy and confidentiality. At the beginning of each interview, participants were informed about the purpose of the study and signed written informed consent in their native language. They were assured that their responses would not affect their welfare status and that they could decline to answer questions and withdraw at any time. Modest cash incentives were offered at the end of each interview. The interviews, lasting 60–150 minutes, were recorded, transcribed and anonymised for data analysis. The Principal Investigator securely stored the audiotapes using a password. The ethical board of the authors’ university approved the research procedure.

This procedure had limitations. First, the sample was recruited through government and third-sector agencies, potentially excluding individuals not interacting closely with these agencies. Second, data were collected by different interviewers, which may have led to inconsistencies due to variations in interviewers’ skills and experience. To minimise personal bias, we trained all interviewers, used standardised guidelines and conducted immediate tape verification for quality control.

Data analysis

We employed thematic analysis using NVivo (12.0) software. Guided by the conceptual framework related to SSN participation and family processes (e.g. Daly, 2011, 2018), a tree coding system was developed. The primary codes were ‘familisation’, ‘defamilisation’ and ‘hybrid’ processes, and secondary codes were based on specific SSN programmes. Two authors familiar with the social contexts and community norms of Shanghai and Taipei conducted thematic coding on the transcripts independently and then exchanged their interpretations until reaching consensus. The authors have translated selected participant quotations into English in this article.

Results

Familisation process

Familisation processes emerge when social welfare treats the family as a collective unit, and these benefits facilitate people’s dependence on the family (Daly, 2011). The familisation process witnessed in SSN is mostly inadvertently reinforced through institutional arrangements of means-tested cash transfer programmes.

First, household-level means-test procedures inadvertently shape family boundaries. Daly (2011) and Saraceno (2016) suggest that familisation experiences are associated with cash benefits provided on a household basis. In our investigation, the eligibility rules for cash transfer programmes were based on a household-based means test that assumed that families are an economic unit sharing resources and that an individual family member’s welfare eligibility cannot be independent of the family’s total income and assets. In Shanghai, people holding the same Hukou (household registration) constitute one unit for applying for Dibao and receiving cash transfers. Participants mentioned strategies to manipulate their eligibility to maximise benefit entitlement. One man (SH09) recounted that he divorced his wife and then they separately applied for Dibao and housing benefits as two families despite continuing to live under the same roof. This process indicates that nominal family boundaries in the Hukou significantly impact people’s access to welfare benefits.

In Taipei, the means-test rules for cash transfers are strict (Walker and Wong, 2005), and the presence of adult children or older people often makes it harder for the entire family to meet the eligibility criteria, regardless of whether they share resources. Adult children are regarded as wage earners by default; therefore, the presence of an adult child increases nominal family income. For example, a widowed single mother with five children (TW01) was excluded from the low-income allowance because her older children were considered to have an income. However, they only occasionally earned part-time income, and their families still faced financial difficulties. Only after dividing the family into two distinct households could the daughter ‘apply to become a low-income household, to finally get some resources in’. Applying for public assistance with older parents is also problematic because parents’ assets are included in the asset test, even though they do not live together and cannot provide support. Therefore, many cash transfer applicants had to make extra efforts to manipulate their family circumstances to meet the eligibility rules. A divorced father of three children (TW18) recounted:

The first application failed, and the second time, a social worker suggested not to apply with my father and mother because if I apply with my parents in the same household, they need to check my brother’s and my sister’s income and even check my grandfather and grandmother’s. It’s troublesome.

Although TW18 ultimately received cash transfers, the process was tiresome.

In these cases, family members are regarded as collective units by default, even though they cannot support each other. The household-level means-test procedure shapes a familisation process, family boundaries influencing people’s access to financial support.

Second, insufficient cash transfers reinforce family care obligations. Means-tested cash transfer programmes are a last resort in the SSN, providing minimal economic support to maintain basic living. Therefore, the benefits were set at a relatively low level. The Dibao standard in Shanghai is equivalent to approximately 17 percent of per capita disposable income. In Taipei, the benefit level is typically equivalent to approximately 30–40 percent of the average per capita income (Walker and Wong, 2005). Limited cash payment is insufficient to meet comprehensive family needs; therefore, caregivers continue to have the primary responsibility for caring for their families.

Almost all Shanghai interviewees commented on the inadequacy of the Dibao payment, especially for their children’s education. Although most Dibao recipients also received educational subsidies, these covered school education costs only and excluded out-of-school educational activities that parents considered a necessary investment. A single father (SH08), unemployed due to a serious work injury, expressed the pressure he experienced:

My child’s expenses are high. The child is growing up; he needs to eat meat and drink milk. Do you know how much a cram school costs now? It is at least five or six hundred yuan for one subject. How can the Dibao payment be sufficient?

Although the cash transfer amount in Taipei was higher than in Shanghai, living allowance recipients in Taipei also claimed that the benefit failed to compensate for caregiving expenses. A woman (TW15) living with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, neither of whom could care for themselves, said that the living allowance only enabled her to ‘take care of the family without worrying about food and clothing’ but failed to free caregivers from fulfilling family obligations. The fundamental reason for her family’s hardship was:

not purely the lack of income . . . it is because the family has these people to take care of, so there is no way to work . . . When this problem remains unresolved, there is no way for me to think about pursuing other opportunities like finding a job.

Although cash transfers helped safeguard basic living, they failed to alleviate low-income families’ economic anxiety. Major sources of economic anxiety included high child education expenses and caregiving responsibilities. Without sufficient cash benefits and supplemented family services, caregivers in welfare-receiving families remained burdened by family pressures and obligations.

Defamilisation process

The defamilisation process is associated with providing subsidies or services for children and parents. Child allowances shape the intra-household resource allocation process and the economic dependence relationship between parents and children. Either through out-of-home services or financially subsidising out-of-home services, parenting services can support parents with caring responsibilities to reconcile conflicts between fulfilling family obligations and pursuing paid work (Bambra, 2007; Daly, 2011). In Shanghai and Taipei, even after considering the cash benefits and services provided by the government and third sector, defamilisation measures were irregular and unsustainable. We mainly observed defamilisation processes among families with close interactions with the third sector. Nevertheless, low-income parents still attached great importance to defamilisation experiences.

First, subsidising children’s education expenses can reduce the parental economic burden and children’s economic reliance on their families. In Shanghai, scholarship programmes and fee reductions to students were major defamilisation measures. The monetary support provided a significantly increased income for low-income parents. A single mother (SH15) recounted that her daughter’s scholarship allowed her to be economically independent: ‘She can earn her own living expenses and tuition. She can also participate in a work-study programme at school. Anyway, she should be able to take care of herself’. A mother with uraemia (SH13) also said, ‘my son does not have to pay for food from primary school to middle school because of our Dibao status’. Low-income parents valued monetary support for their children’s education. However, as most scholarship programmes are only available to students with good academic performance and the benefit is only paid once a year or semester, defamilisation measures are selective and irregular. Hence, this demonstrates a modest defamilisation process to alleviate parenting pressure.

In Taipei, the government provides child and youth allowances to low- and middle-to-low-income families. Although benefits are delivered to the household head, each eligible child is counted as an independent recipient when calculating the benefits. In this sense, children are granted individualistic welfare rights. Third-sector agencies, such as the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF), have also established sponsorship and scholarship programmes to support the academic development of students with financial difficulties. The sponsorship programme provides one-on-one support in which sponsors contribute a fixed amount of money regularly to help children in need. Scholarship programmes provide financial aid to sponsored children and/or their siblings to improve their educational attainment. A single mother of three children (TW04), who received child allowance from the government and scholarships from TFCF, mentioned that the child was ‘paying for his own, as TFCF would help him to apply for a scholarship’ and her children were ‘brought up by society and the government’. A mother of three children (TW10) said that ‘since (eldest son) started getting the scholarship, I gradually felt a bit more relaxed and didn’t need to borrow money from others anymore’. Another single mother of three children (TW03) said, ‘I am so happy my kids rely on that scholarship from TFCF’. These financial assistance programmes emancipated parents from economic stress and empowered their children to become financially independent.

Second, parenting support services can reduce the burden parents experience from parental activities and build a connection with supportive outsiders. Out-of-home care activities provided or subsidised by the state outsource domestic work (Daly, 2018), freeing caregivers from family care work. From the children’s perspective, out-of-home services reduce their dependence on caregivers (Leitner, 2003). Parenting support services are a less prevalent SSN programme than monetary support. In Shanghai, only a few interviewees mentioned receiving benefits or services for out-of-home activities. A mother living in public housing (SH07) mentioned that her residential committee occasionally distributed free movie tickets so that her child could participate in leisure activities.

Taipei participants more commonly mentioned parenting support services than Shanghai interviewees. Taipei’s government subsidised after-school tutoring expenses for low-income students. A single mother with four children (TW16) attached great importance to her son’s access to after-school courses because it enabled her to work. In addition to government measures, the third sector provided more diverse parenting support services, including travel and out-of-home activities, psychological consultations and home visits. Low-income parents face the dilemma of spending more time earning money than accompanying their children. Out-of-home activities arranged by third-sector organisations relieve parents of this dilemma. For example, the father of three children (TW11) thought it important for children to go out and play. However, he could not do this himself because of his intensive work hours. For him, free travel provided by the TFCF was more important than monetary subsidies.

Low-income parents also experience emotional pressure to fulfil their parental responsibilities. The third sector provides low-income parents with a buffer against emotional pressure by building emotional connections with sources of external support. Low-income parents valued emotional support through interactions with supportive outsiders. A single mother with two children (TW02) felt ‘so touched emotionally’ because four donors from TFCF supported her daughter. She regarded external donors as the motivation to support her through parenting difficulties. Even though she and the donors had never met in person, she thought that ‘the silent support from behind is even more powerful than your own family and own relatives’. Another single mother in Taipei (TW16) said:

Charity organisations visit us and provide us with care. I would not talk about my difficulties about caring for my son in front of my family. But charitable organisations are located in my region, and sometimes they come to my house to chat. They are more reliable.

In summary, defamilisation SSN measures primarily encompass support for parenting practices, reducing children’s reliance on the family and relieving parents’ burden to fulfil their parenting duties. Defamilisation features are evident in both financial assistance and non-material support, such as providing social connections to families.

A hybrid process of familisation and defamilisation

Familisation and defamilisation are not polar opposites. Leitner (2003) and Lohmann and Zagel (2016) introduced an implicit category based on a quantitative investigation of family policies in European countries. Implicit familisation/defamilisation contains weak familisation and defamilisation components, where social welfare neither directly enhances the family’s welfare function nor explicitly reduces dependence on the family. However, in our qualitative inquiries, we observed a hybrid (rather than implicit) process where familisation and defamilisation experiences coexisted explicitly, and no one direction dominated the process. The hybrid process of familisation and defamilisation was exemplified by employment support programmes.

Employment support enables low-income adults to seek independence through labour market participation while caring for the family. Public work programmes are a widely used policy approach to support low-income people’s labour market participation. This can be deemed a defamilisation measure because the beneficiary is offered the option of working outside the home. However, the low wages in these programmes also exhibit familial features. While previous literature regards supporting part-time work as a familisation feature for non-poor families (Daly, 2011), it is worth noting that the definition of familisation and defamilisation is based on a ‘reference point’, the natural family condition without policy intervention. The reference points for low-income and non-poor families are different. In a higher-income context, part-time work is familisation-oriented relative to full-time work that the adult is likely to pursue while providing an opportunity for low-income families to engage in the labour market relative to their common alternative of unemployment. Nevertheless, the wages for public jobs are often minimal and insufficient to allow workers complete independence from family obligations.

A mother in Shanghai (SH07) described how the Women’s Federation had referred her to a community public job, ‘My child was in school, so they asked me if I would like to accept a community work position . . . they give me 50 yuan each time’, allowing her to combine earning an income with caring for her children. It is not easy for mothers of school-age children to find employment offering a flexible work schedule. However, a public job enabled her to try to balance employment and provide family care.

In Taipei, government work relief programmes enable low-income allowance recipients to work without losing welfare benefits. Employment opportunities can serve as defamilisation incentives by increasing income. An increase in income can contribute to a person’s greater sense of autonomy and independence, alleviate the burden on their families and potentially allow them to meet their own needs. On the other hand, work arrangements are relatively flexible, supporting low-income parents in caring for their children while working. A mother with four children, one of whom had disabilities (TW16), undertook cleaning and clerical work at a social welfare institution. It is difficult for a mother in her situation to secure employment in the labour market. The job at the social welfare institution offered her an employment opportunity, a defamilisation feature. Furthermore, the job allowed her to bring her son with disabilities to work, thus enabling her to earn money while caring for the family.

Hybrid familisation and defamilisation processes suggest that SSN can offer low-income individuals flexibility in managing family lives based on their needs and preferences.

Conclusion and discussion

While previous studies on familisation and defamilisation have mainly focused on general family policies, this study extends these discussions to SSN supporting low-income families in two EA cities. As presented in Figure 1, low-income families’ familisation, defamilisation and hybrid experiences can coexist on a continuous spectrum, and family experiences are shaped through heterogeneous policy tools, targeting methods and adequacy of provision. First, household-level targeting and insufficient benefits of means-tested cash transfer programmes result in familisation. Specifically, household-level means-testing inadvertently reinforces the significance of family boundaries for people’s access to welfare benefits; the minimum level of cash benefit fails to free low-income parents from economic pressure and care obligations. Second, defamilisation measures include subsidies and services targeting children and parents that reduce children’s dependence on family and unburden parents from family obligations. Finally, a hybrid process of familisation and defamilisation was observed in the employment support programme, enabling adult labour to be immersed in society rather than bound by families. However, in the absence of adequate childcare services, employment selection and arrangement remain restricted by family care duties.

Figure 1.

Summary of familisation, defamilisation, and hybrid policy measures and the family process for low-income families interviewed in Shanghai and Taipei.

The design of SSN often occurs without explicit consideration of its impact on familisation or defamilisation dynamics. Investigating low-income families’ experiences with SSN is critical to understanding how policy design aligns with broader societal objectives and norms and the extent to which these policies influence family lives. The family experiences of low-income and high-income individuals differ because the former manage their lives with limited resources. SSN can alleviate economic pressure, thereby intervening in family processes. However, the literature has focused less on SSN in familisation and defamilisation than family policies for general families.

This study suggests that familisation and defamilisation features of SSN demonstrate both commonality and uniqueness compared with family policy. Subsidies for child expenses and parental services exhibit defamilisation in both SSN and family policy. The SSN’s household-level means-testing mainly promotes familisation. While supporting part-time work is considered a familisation measure under the family policy framework, part-time work programmes in SSN can have hybrid implications for family processes. Overall, the findings highlight the potential influence of SSN policy design on low-income family experiences through pathways different from those of family policies.

Previous literature suggests that, for non-poor families, defamilisation measures are more desirable than familisation measures in promoting gender equality and relieving family obligations (Yu et al., 2020). Low-income families also seek defamilisation measures to ease caregiving pressures. However, in EA societies, where strong family values prevail, the family remains a robust social institution that shapes SSN design. Faced with the difficulties of balancing family values with individual autonomy, our findings highlight the need for policymakers to be more cognisant of how their policy designs impact familisation and defamilisation outcomes. Outside East Asia, whether in regions characterised by collectivist traditions (e.g. South America, Mediterranean Europe, and South and Southeast Asia) or those with individualist cultures, social assistance systems similarly exhibit familisation design features and challenges, such as family-oriented means-testing rules and inadequate welfare benefits. However, the development and implementation of defamilisation measures vary significantly across these regions. The findings from this study highlight the importance for governments in East Asia and beyond to revisit their system designs to strengthen their defamilised services and provide balanced support for both families and individuals within a family-oriented policy framework. Policymakers can also review and adjust existing SSN in alignment with their vision for societal family norms. In practice, given the enduring significance of the family in EA, policymakers could enhance familisation experiences by increasing cash benefits and incorporating the burden of household expenditure in means-testing procedures. Meanwhile, facilitating the delivery of defamilisation services by social workers could further facilitate individual autonomy. In addition, our investigation reveals that familisation and defamilisation processes can coexist. The ‘familisation-hybrid-defamisation’ spectrum of policy design features can serve as a framework to re-evaluate SSN design in other contexts.

Regarding regional comparisons, Shanghai’s SSN exhibited more familisation characteristics, primarily reinforcing family responsibilities through regressive cash-based support. Conversely, in Taipei, where more third-sector organisations engaged in SSN, low-income parents reported more defamilisation experiences through services to relieve parenting obligations and enhance parenting practices. Although in Taipei the means-testing process exhibits even stronger familisation character and third-sector support was often irregular, recipients highly valued these defamilisation experiences. This further validates the importance of supporting the pursuit of individualisation within cultures and policy frameworks with a strong family orientation.

In the post-COVID-19 era, strengthening policy support for low-income populations is more crucial than ever, as the pandemic exacerbated existing socio-economic inequalities and placed families at greater risk of increased caregiving duties (Choi et al., 2022). While familisation policies can foster family solidarity and social cohesion during recovery, they may also reinforce traditional gender roles, particularly in EA societies where caregiving responsibilities are often assigned to women. Conversely, expanding access to public childcare and essential services through defamilisation policies is vital to enable individuals – especially women – to participate in the workforce and gain financial independence. This approach can mitigate the pandemic’s long-term economic impact and support personal development. Ultimately, while familisation strengthens family units, defamilisation is essential for creating an equitable environment that reduces dependence on family networks. In the context of serving low-income families, changing the nature of familisation measures embedded in the social assistance system, such as family-oriented means-testing and inadequate welfare benefits, presents significant challenges. However, social workers can play a pivotal role in mitigating these issues through defamilisation measures, such as child- or parent-oriented services. Specifically, they can provide respite care, offer emotional counselling and foster social support networks for women with caregiving responsibilities – an area often overlooked by current policy frameworks. These efforts enable social workers to complement the familisation experiences in social assistance programmes by promoting individuals’ autonomy and self-determination, core values of the social work profession.

Despite its contribution, this study has limitations. It focused on interactions between parents and their children. Therefore, interactions between other family members were not fully examined. Future studies can include older adult-headed or child-headed households and investigate familisation and defamilisation experiences based on the extended family structure.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Ethical approval information

All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) at the University of Hong Kong (Reference Number EA1701047).

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by Social Science Foundation of Beijing (22SRC017); Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the Research Funds of Renmin University of China (23XNF027); Hong Kong Research Grants Council Early Career Scheme (27611517); Yushan Young Scholar Program (MOE-110-YSFSL-0003-003-P1) by the Taiwan Ministry of Education; the National Science and Technology Council (113-2628-H-002 -017-); and the Taiwan Social Resilience Research Center (112L900304) from the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Taiwan Ministry of Education.

ORCID iDs

Xi Zhao

Julia Shu-Huah Wang

Author biographies

Xi Zhao is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Studies of Sociological Theory & Method, School of Social Research, Renmin University of China. Her research focuses on poverty, social assistance policy and comparative social welfare studies.

Julia Shu-Huah Wang is an Associate Professor at Department of Social Work, National Taiwan University. Her research focuses on social welfare policies, poverty alleviation interventions, immigration policies and the well-being of families.

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