ABSTRAK
Welfare systems in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan were traditionally geared towards economic growth and productivity, rather than focusing on social rights. However, with increasing social policy commitments and migratory inflows in recent years, questions of who is deserving what in redistributive terms are increasingly relevant for these welfare latecomers, as it has been the case for European welfare states. By connecting discourses on social citizenship in East Asia to broader theoritical debates, this study aims to provide some conceptual instruments for a deeper analysis of social rights in this region in the face of increasing immigration trends. it is suggested that the lack of a differentiation between the ideas of status, identity, and social rights may lead to an ethnocentric understanding of social citizenship, which ill fits with the human rights perspective.