Advancing social equity in East Asia: education and health care policy in China, South Korea, and Singapore

ABSTRACT Social equity is about asking who ought to get what and for whom is this programme good. With a focus on East Asia, this article examines how social equity is both conceptualised and put into practice outside of the Western context. An assessment of education and health care policy in China, Korea, and Singapore reveals four common themes about social equity in the East Asian context: shifting priorities on equity over time, balancing equity and meritocracy, prioritising distributional equity, and the importance of geography. These four themes demonstrate the need for a more global understanding of social equity.