A new trend in terms of academic discussion to classify its welfare system has been revealed in the last decade. Hui et al. (2009/2012) and Lai (2012) first brought international attention to the topic. They adopted an ideal-typical perspective (cf Aspalter 2011, 2019b) to analyze social welfare in Macao by globally comparing with those welfare state regimes already reported in the literature. Although their findings at the beginning of this discourse did not support classifying Macao’s welfare system into any existing welfare regime, it was pinpointed that Macao’s public expenditure on social welfare was the lowest around the globe. They further recommended regularly reviewing the case of Macao to capture its changes and development in social welfare. Later on in 2023, Aspalter came to classify Macao as a new member of the East Asian Welfare Model or Pro-Welfare Conservative Welfare Regime, in the ideal-typical sense, as Macao has introduced a major non-mandatory provident fund system in 2018.