Old Age Security: A Case from Rural Suzhou

During the course of urbanization and industrialization, a growing number of farmers have become landless as local governments have bought out their land for non-agricultural uses. Even in the localities where the industrialization process absorbs a vast majority of rural labor, the questions of how to compensate for the economic shock on the rural landless and how to alleviate and eliminate mental suffering as a result of losing land have always been a challenge to government capacity in social stabilization and a yardstick to measure social justice in local communities. In the administration areas of Suzhou City in Jiangsu Province, governments at all levels have successfully coped with this challenge. By means of “swapping land for old-age support” and income redistribution, Suzhou municipality has not only met the demand on land for urbanization and industrialization while maintaining social stability, but also laid a foundation for establishing an integrated pension system for both urban and rural residents. Such a system has changed the tradition of farmers’ households relying on land to deal with economic risk and of the aged depending on their sons for livelihood support in rural society.