SUN Yi-fan,CHEN Li-sha

[Abstract]In China，farmers are a huge vulnerable group.The development of rural public service is slower than in urban area，especially on elderly care.To provide social protection for farmers and guarantee their quality of life can reduce poverty，improve old-age security in rural and urban area integrated.New pension system for rural residents was established in 2009.This research attempts to provide a reference for policy makers in China.A four-round Delphi Technique was designed to answer what are the areas for improvement that can be proposed for New Pension System for Rural Residents in China and how are the areas of improvement ranked.

[摘 要]在中国，农民是一个数量庞大的弱势群体。农村的公共服务建设落后于城市，尤其是在养老保障方面。为农民提供社会保护和保障其生活质量，有利于在农村和城市地区减少贫困、改善老年生活状况。2009年，在中国建立了新型农村居民养老保险体系。本研究旨在为中国的政策制定者提供参考。为此本研究采用了四轮德尔菲法，以探讨中国新型农村居民养老保险体系中可以完善的领域，以及这些领域的优先次序。

[Key words]pension system；rural resident；Delphi Technique；areas for improvement

[关键词]养老保险体系；农村居民；德尔菲法；提升空间

[中图分类号]F840 [文献标识码]A [文章编号]1005-6432（2014）4-0124-05

1 INTRODUCTION

China has a population of 1.3 billion，of which，around 66% are rural residents （China Statistical Yearbook，2010）.Elderly care of rural residents is a heavy burden for Chinese government.In China，elderly care，including economy support and service support，can be divided into informal system，such as family support elderly care and self-support elderly care，and formal system，such as endowment insurance，welfare and social assistance （Huang and He，1998）.The history of China social security shows that the elderly care system is transforming continuously from informal to formal.However，the development of formal elderly care system in rural area is slower than in urban area.Commonly，in rural area，family-supported elderly care （traditional mode） is the most effective mode.Because there is a reciprocal relationship between the family members，they will help and support each other.But the dual processes of rapid industrialization and urbanization may have a detrimental effect on the ability of the family to offer support to the more vulnerable members.The older people in the rural areas left behind by the migration of the young to urban areas in search of employment are most at risk （Cheng，2006）.The traditional elderly care mode，which is based on family support，cannot handle the social risks；thus a more effective and adequate elderly care system is needed，that is the reason why the gradual transformation from the informal mode to the formal mode.

China is now in the process of completing this transformation.As families get smaller，the group of rural residents breaks up；land resource gets scarce，the surplus value of agriculture becomes limited；aging in rural area grows faster than in urban area.All of these issues lead to the inadequacy of family support and the inability of the traditionally informal elderly care system to meet rural residents need （Wang，2006）.As such，the academia and the Chinese government both realized that its very important and necessary to set up a formal elderly care system.

For a long time，the main focus of Chinese social security reform is urban area.In the planned economy system，China took“low wages，high welfare”policy to develop heavy industry （Lin，1999）.In 1951，China issued Labor Insurance Regulation，in which the workers of state-owned enterprise and collective-owned enterprise business were covered，and the items include disability，death，disease，elderly，childbirth and support for relatives （Labor Insurance Regulation，1951）.Because of the labor insurance and land reform，China was approved by workers and farmers （Gao，2006）.After the economic reform was issued，social insurance system included elderly care，medical care and unemployment was reformed from 1985 in urban areas.Social assistance system，which based on basic living standard security system，was set up as well.Owing to the limit of financial and material resources，self-support and family support elderly care were the main parts of rural elderly care system，five guarantees family system and cooperative medical care system did not make the investment yield well.This situation lasted 25 years after the economic reform started.In the 21st century，as the leading role，the government changed the programs of rural social security.In 2003，new type rural cooperative medical care system was set up；2007，rural basic living standard security system was set up；but there is still no social old-age security system.Thirty years had passed since the economic reform commenced，the huge variations of Chinese entire society have changed the old circumstance and supply condition of rural social old-age security system，and rural residents appeal for an elderly system have become stronger as well.

2 THE DELPHI TECHNIQUE

The Delphi Technique is a structured communication technique，originally developed as a systematic，interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts （Linstone and Turoff，1975）.From the 1970s，the Delphi technique began to be used in public policy-making，which caused some methodological innovations.

The need to examine several types of items leads to introducing different evaluation scales which are not used in the standard Delphi.These often include desirability，feasibility and probability，which the analysts can use to outline different scenarios：the desired scenario，the potential scenario and the expected scenario.

The complexity of the issues posed in public policy-making leads to give more importance to the arguments supporting the evaluations of the panelists；so these are often invited to list arguments for and against each option item，and sometimes they are given the possibility to suggest new items to be submitted to the panel.

For the same reason，the scaling methods，which are used to measure panel evaluations，often include more sophisticated approaches such as multi-dimensional scaling.

2.1 The Instrument of Delphi Method

The experts answer questionnaires in two or more rounds.After each round，a facilitator provides an anonymous summary of the experts forecasts from the previous round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments.Thus，experts are encouraged to revise their earlier answers in light of the replies of other members of their panel.It is believed that during this process the range of the answers will decrease and the group will converge towards the “correct” answer.Finally，the process is stopped after a pre-defined stop criterion and the mean or median scores of the final rounds determine the results （Rowe and Wright，1999）.The flow of Delphi technique is presented as Fig.1.

2.2Kendalls Coefficient of Concordance （w）

When the third round of Delphi technique is complete，the Kendalls W will be computed for the scored ranking to measure the level of consensus among the experts for the factors proposed with respect to both rounds.

Kendalls W is a measure of the agreement between several judges who have rank ordered a set of entities （Field，2005）.If the test statistic W is 1，then all the survey respondents have been unanimous，and each respondent has assigned the same order to the list of concerns.If W is 0，then there is no overall trend of agreement among the respondents，and their responses may be regarded as essentially random.Intermediate values of W indicate a greater or lesser degree of unanimity among the various responses.

3 EXPERT OPINION COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

A four-round Delphi Technique were designed to answer what are the areas for improvement that can be proposed for New Pension System for Rural Residents in China and how are the areas of improvement ranked.

There are 18 experts who are identified through their experiences and fields of interest participated in the first round survey.The experts are comprised with academicians and officers of social security authorities.The list of experts who participated in the expert opinion assessment （EOA） is shown in Table 1.In the panel of experts，11 are academicians in universities and most of them have teaching or researching experience of social security；and 7 officers from Human Resource and Social Security Bureau of different provinces，they know well of current social security policies and existing problems.

Due to the multiplicity of rounds conducted，the EOA instrument was considered to be valid as the experts were continuously provided with the outcomes of the previous rounds.Some experts requested that the findings of the whole study be shared，a request which was fulfilled upon completion of this study.

There are 12 experts responded to the survey both in round 2 and round 3.Kendalls coefficient of concordance was used to measure the level of consensus among the experts for their ranking of the factors proposed in round 1.For the second round of the EOA，the Kendalls coefficients of concordance is 0.128，and p-value is 0.53 （refer to Table 3）.It means that in the second round the experts are not quite agree with each other，and the findings are deemed to be insignificant because of the p-value is more than 0.05.Thus，it is necessary to conduct the third round of expert opinion assessment.For the third round of EOA，with reference to Table 5，the Kendalls Coefficients of Concordance and p-value for scored ranking is 0.480 and 0.000 respectively which implies that the study is statistically significant and the ranking of the 12 experts are consistent.

Therefore，based on the mean ranking of the areas that need to be improved for New Pension System for Rural Residents，the order is：The contents of New Pension System for Rural Residents，Fund Operation，Financing ability and level，Macro management system，Management mechanism，and Incentive mechanism.This finding implies that the experts view that the contents of New Pension System for Rural Residents is the most urgent aspect that needs improvement，while the incentive mechanism is the least urgent aspect.

Contents of New Pension System for Rural Residents are the major issues stressed by the respondents in deal with the improvement of New Pension System for Rural Residents.About 45% of the items expressed by the interviewees were about the adjustment of the contents of New Pension System for Rural Residents，and it was almost the first factor came into the interviewees minds.Most of the interviewees suggested that the benefit need to adjust to a higher level.

From the respective of urgent，complete rural old-age social security system and increase the level of benefits of the pension should be the first concern of the government.

The family members of the senior citizens （who are over 60 years old） should participate in the scheme voluntarily，rather than compulsively.On one hand，the elderly can be protected，on the other hand，the young generation can take time to get to know New Pension System for Rural Residents and accept it slowly.

Financing ability and level is the foundation of rural old-age social security system.60% of the interviewees have mentioned financing problem when talking about the improvement of rural old-age social security system.They have proposed several way of improve the financing abilities and levels.

There are special fund for supporting agriculture development and helping the poverty in our country，we should also establish a special sponsor fund for rural social pension insurance.Encouraging domestic and foreign enterprises，township enterprises，the urban citizens with high level of income and other individuals donate money to pension insurance fund of some poor regions.It will promote the development of rural social pension insurance.

There are four kinds of expenditure of financial support for agriculture development，namely expenditure on supporting farming，expenditure on rural fundamental establishment，expenditure on rural technology development，and on rural subsidies.With the economic development，it is necessary to provide subsidies for rural social pension insurance.

Fund operation includes two important aspects，namely maintenance and appreciation of values of the fund and supervision system of the fund.And for current situation，the interviewees suggest putting more concern on the maintenance and appreciation of the values of the fund.

Maintenance and appreciation of the values of the fund is a vital aspect for realizing the healthy and sustainable development of rural old-age social security system.

To improve earning rate，the most important approach is to apply market-driven operation.Only if the capital freely invests in financial assets，can we obtain the average earning rate of society.

The improvement of management mechanism includes establish and improve a managing team with professional knowledge，decline managing cost and using information management system.

Allow farmers to exchange land for social security.In the process of the development of agriculture，farming and farmers has a decreasing trend.It has generated a huge threat for the farmers who take land and farming as the way of living.In order to address these specific issues，the system of trading land for social insurance should be established.

Incentive mechanism is the approach of encourage rural residents take part in the rural old-age social security system.It includes encouraging participates select higher contribution level；strengthen the incentive function of personal accounts；conduct propaganda among the masses；and dynamically adjust government subsidy.

The migration of rural residents should be fully considered in the design process of New Pension System for Rural Residents.A dynamic personal account of New Pension System for Rural Residents will insure that rural residents can keep their account，pay contribution and get benefit wherever he is.At the same time，speed up national social insurance information network construction，and provide technical support for inter-provincial account transfer of New Pension System for Rural Residents and other social security systems.

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