| Abstract: | This article examines the main social security programs, narrowly defined to include income maintenance for the aged and health care, in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, and reveals the large degree to which the statutory programs depend on private provision, particularly, private financing. It further shows that efforts are underway to reduce, or at least to arrest the expansion of role of the state by a corresponding expansion in the role of private provision and financing. The expansion of social security for the aged in Thailand is an exception in this regard. I conclude that both inefficiency and inequity have been promoted. |
