Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2005 in the subject Sociology - Social System and Social Structure, grade: 1,7, http://www.uni-jena.de/ (Institut für Soziologie), language: English, abstract: This work analyses the specific structural characteristics and development specialities of East Asian welfare states. In a historical, qualitative and quantitative comparison of welfare development in East Asia and Southern Europe the East Asian tigers (despite all intraregional differences) are described as welfare societies without welfare state, The decisive foundation of this kind of welfarism is a Confucian productivism.