(News from Li Caixia)Professor David Piachaud from the department of Social Policy of London School of Economics came to our department and talked about the social policy in the 21st century. This event was organized by the department of sociology and took place at Room 109, Xiong Zhixing Hall on February 28th, 2012.

Professor David Piachaud is a well known scholar in the field of social policy and has been working in this field for 40 years. After attending the conference organized by Development Research Center of the State Council and World Bank, he was invited to give a lecture in Tsinghua University. This lecture has attracted students from different departments, including some international students.

During the lecture, Prof. Piachaud reviewed the development of social policy in the 20th century. He pointed out that many social policies to protect the rights of lower-class life and welfare systems have been established in various counties. He called the 20th century the “century of social policy”. After that, he talked about the difficulties and challenges that the social policy and social welfare system are facing in the new century, which includes the change of the population structure, the continuous enlargement of social inequity, and the challenges of equal opportunity. These issues lead us to question about the development of social policy in the 21st century. For this, Prof. David showed a positive attitude and listed some possibilities of the development of social policy.

After the lecture, many students asked some good questions and exchanged their opinions with Prof.  Piachaud.(Edited by Wei Rui)