Social Insurance Coverage for Emerging Occupational Groups in China: Problems, Causes, and Policy Responses

The rapid expansion of platform-mediated and flexible employment has created a growing mismatch between new forms of work and social insurance institutions that were designed primarily around stable employment relationships and employer-based contributions. Focusing on China, this review examines social insurance coverage among emerging occupational groups, especially workers who obtain jobs through digital platforms, online matching systems, or project-based arrangements. The paper argues that insufficient protection is multidimensional: it includes incomplete insurance portfolios, contribution interruptions, weak portability, mismatches between occupational risks and available protection, and gaps between formal enrollment and effective benefit access. These problems are not adequately explained by low individual willingness to participate. Rather, they arise from the interaction of employment-status ambiguity, asymmetric platform control and responsibility, volatile earnings, territorial administration, information barriers, and uneven service accessibility. China's occupational injury protection pilot represents an important institutional innovation because it weakens the traditional dependence of work-injury protection on a standard labor relationship. Nevertheless, occupational injury protection cannot substitute for a coherent social insurance package. The paper therefore proposes differentiated responsibility based on actual platform control and economic dependence, more flexible contribution arrangements, multi-platform contribution aggregation, improved national portability, stronger risk-prevention obligations, and targeted affordability support. These reforms would shift policy from nominal coverage expansion toward continuous and effective protection.