Shih-Jiunn Shi and Suetgiin Soon from the National Taiwan University analyse Taiwan's social policy response to the social and economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In their abstract they write: "Effective countermeasures have created favourable circumstances for the government to deploy social policy as a safety net. Almost all the major responses are of a temporary nature, and a programmatic extension of the existing social security institutions (e.g., social assistance and specific in-cash benefits targeted at specific occupational or population groups). In addition, the government granted financial support to those enterprises in difficulties to disincentivize them from dismissing their employees. All these measures have largely offset the adverse consequences of the pandemic crisis. Against this backdrop, Taiwan should be amongst those countries to recover first from the pandemic shock."

In the coming weeks, a total of more than 30 volumes will be published in the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series, with a special focus on the Global South. The series provides a country-by-country overview of worldwide social policy developments in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Each report contains an essay focusing on one particular dimension of a country’s social policy response and is supplemented by a systematic data appendix on social policy legislation passed since the outbreak of the pandemic. All published reports have undergone peer review. Contributors to the series include members of the CRC 1342 and its international expert network.

Read the first volume of the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series: Taiwan’s Social Policy Response to Covid-19: Protecting Workers, Reviving the Economy