This is the only in-depth study of social policies in Southeast Asia. It compares social security, health, and education policies in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. After describing the policies and assessing their adequacy and equity implications, it examines the forces that have shaped them. It concludes that social programs (except for primary education) in the region are both inadequate and inequitable. It argues that the reason for this is political rather than cultural or socio-economic.

Social Policy has been a key dimension of dynamic economic growth in East Asia's 'little tigers' and is also a prominent strand of their responses to the financial crisis of the late 1990s. This systematic comparative analysis of social policy in the region focuses on the key sectors of education, health, housing and social security. It sets these sectoral analyses in wider contexts of debates about developmental states, the East Asian welfare model and globalization.

Welfare capitalism, the management ethos adopted by American business leaders in the early twentieth century, emphasizes the role of business rather than trade unions or government in taking care of its workers. This article focuses on the reasons why the United States Rubber Company (USRC), one of the four largest U.S. rubber manufacturers, promoted welfare capitalism at its rubber plantations on the east coast of Sumatra and Malaya between 1910 and 1942. In addition, this study assesses the development of USRC's system of welfare in the areas of housing, profit sharing, pension plans, health care, and recreation. This article argues that USRC's intention was not to forestall unionization (the intention of U.S.-based companies in adopting welfare capitalism), as union formation in Southeast Asia during that period was very unlikely, but to overcome labor shortages and high turnover rates and to ensure labor stability. With reduced labor costs, the availability of financial resources allowed for technical innovations and Ramp;D, which ultimately would lead to increased productivity.

This Element argues that Southeast Asia's failure to develop stronger social protection systems has been, at its root, a matter of politics and power. It has reflected the political dominance within the region of predatory and technocratic elements, and the relative weakness of progressive elements. From the mid-1980s, democratisation, the emergence of political entrepreneurs seeking to mobilise mass electoral support, and the occurrence of severe economic and social crises generated pressure on governments within the region to strengthen their social protection systems. But while such developments shifted policy in a more progressive direction, they have been insufficient to produce far-reaching change. Rather, they have produced a layering effect. Innovations have built upon pre-existing policy and institutional arrangements without fundamentally altering these arrangements, ensuring that social protection systems continue to have strong conservative, productivist and predatory attributes.