社会保障是关于社会成员基本风险管理的一项制度安排，各国的社会保障制度具有相似性，但也因自然、经济、社会和文化传统的不同而有差异。从风险管理主体结构、政府目标和风险处理方法三个方面分析，东亚社会保障与欧洲社会保障之间的差异具有“两头小、中间大”的特征，即在人类文明早期，东亚社会保障与欧洲社会保障差异不大；在封建社会时期，东亚社会保障与欧洲社会保障差异较大；而到近代，与全球化趋势相适应，东亚社会保障与欧洲社会保障又呈现趋同的迹象，但差异依然存在。

Social security is a system on the basic risk management of social members.  There are some similarities in the social security of diverse countries, but differences also exist because of the diversity in natural condition, economy, social circumstances and cultural tradition. This article reveals the difference between East Asian social security and European social security from three aspects which are subject structure, government targets and risk processing methods. The research indicates that difference seems to be small on the two ends and big in the middle. That means in the early period of human civilization, the difference between East Asian social security and European social security was almost same, and after stepping into feudal society the difference became larger. Recently,however,adapting to globalization, social security of East Asia and that of Europe incline to develop in the same direction, while differences still exist.