Abstract: The number of the only-child-lost families in China has reached several millions and is still on the rise. Surveys show that death caused by illness or accidents is the major cause of the only-child-lost families, and this cause usually leads them to economic difficulties. Economic support, therefore, has become the basic content of the assistance system for these families, having the three natures of social assistance, social special care and social insurance. However, there are a number of issues existing in the present economic support policy for the only-child-lost families, such as lower standard of the national assistance, bigger gap between regions, imperfect dynamic adjustment mechanism, incomplete policy service, single type or channel for assistance, and so on. It is suggested to perfect China’s present economic support policy for the only-child-lost families through such measures as perfecting the dynamic adjustment mechanism, improving the policy service, diversifying methods of assistance, giving full play to the role of social forces, etc..

Key words: the only-child-lost family; economical support; special pension