First published in 1948, the International Social Security Review is the principal international quarterly publication in the field of social security.
286 results found
Basic income as a pandemic social protection instrument: Lessons from Maricá, Brazil
Authors:
Jurgen De Wispelaere
Leticia Morales
Fabio Waltenberg
Issue:
Volume 77 (2024), Issue 1-2
This article explores the connection between two related but distinct models of basic income proposals in the context of a pandemic emergency. While COVID-19 appears to have increased interest in basic income, this often ended up taking the form of a temporary emergency basic income (EBI) instead of a permanent universal basic income (UBI). In this article we argue that the “dial up/dial down” model of basic income allows us to link EBI and UBI in a way that offers both a practical response to important implementation challenges in emergency policy making and a strategic argument in favour of UBI as a pandemic policy instrument. We illustrate our argument by contrasting the Renda Básica de Cidadania (RBC) in the municipality of Maricá, Brazil, with two comparable programmes in the same region.
Topics:
Cash transfers
Social policies & programmes
COVID-19
Keywords:
social policy
cash benefit
benefit administration
COVID-19
Countries:
Brazil
Seeding policy: Viral cash and the diverse trajectories of basic income in the United States
Authors:
Marc Doussard
Issue:
Volume 77 (2024), Issue 1-2
During the COVID-19 pandemic, cities in the United States of America developed hundreds of basic income pilots. This article examines the heretofore hidden impact of the pandemic on the future extension of basic income programmes at the sub-national level. While the super-majoritarian requirements of United States federal policy making keep the possibility of national-level basic income remote, several features of basic income, including unconditional cash transfers and broad programme eligibility, have emerged as viable tools in state and local policy. Drawing on an inventory of basic income pilots and interviews with policy entrepreneurs, this article defines and then examines the phenomenon of “viral cash” and assesses the probability that the wave of basic income pilots will continue to grow after the pandemic. Conventional approaches to evaluating the diffusion of policies across jurisdictions focus squarely on policy. Appraising viral cash’s future requires a shift to following the advocacy networks who move, adapt and combine basic income with other programmes.
Topics:
Cash transfers
Social policies & programmes
COVID-19
Keywords:
social policy
cash benefit
benefit administration
COVID-19
Countries:
United States of America
Flirting with a basic income in Canada: Were the lessons worth the risk of popular backlash?
Authors:
Evelyn L. Forget
Sid Frankel
Issue:
Volume 77 (2024), Issue 1-2
Canada responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with a series of supports, including direct payments to workers displaced by public health measures. While not a true basic income, the experience highlighted a number of issues including challenges with implementation and intergovernmental relations that affected public opinion and must be dealt with by basic income advocates. The operation of the Canadian social-liberal welfare state informed pandemic policy making and exhibited the path dependence of a deserving/undeserving binary that resulted in conditionality. The income supports associated with the pandemic represent a pragmatic response to an exogenous shock that highlights the inadequacies of existing policy and offers the possibility of change.
Topics:
Cash transfers
Social policies & programmes
COVID-19
Keywords:
social policy
cash benefit
benefit administration
COVID-19
Countries:
Canada
Diversity within universality: Explaining pandemic universal cash transfers in East Asia
Authors:
Young Jun Choi
Hye Sang Noh
Seon Hoe Han
Ugo Gentilini
Issue:
Volume 77 (2024), Issue 1-2
The response to the global COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a surge in short-term universal cash transfer programmes around the world. Notably, East Asian high-income economies have been at the forefront of these initiatives. While the innovative nature of these universal cash injections has been emphasized, there is limited documentation regarding their characteristics, prospects, and underlying motivations. This article sheds light on the domestic political and institutional processes that led to the implementation and design of universal cash transfers in Hong Kong (China), Japan, Republic of Korea, Singapore and Taiwan (China). Overall, the analysis reveals that, within the framework of universality, a nuanced, diverse and dynamic set of operational choices emerge. A range of factors shaped the adoption and evolution of these programmes, including, for example, political pressures stemming from political party competition and efforts to maintain political legitimacy. In general, design parameters are not only defined in technocratic terms, but are negotiated politically.
Topics:
Cash transfers
Social policies & programmes
COVID-19
Keywords:
social policy
cash benefit
universal benefit scheme
political aspect
COVID-19
Regions:
East Asia
Countries:
Hong Kong, China
Japan
Korea, Republic of
Singapore
Taiwan, China
Flash in the pan or eureka moment? What can be learned from Australia's natural experiment with basic income during COVID-19
Authors:
Troy Henderson
Ben Spies-Butcher
Elise Klein
Issue:
Volume 77 (2024), Issue 1-2
The COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread social and economic policy experimentation as governments sought to protect household finances while locking down economies. Cash transfers emerged as one of the most popular policy measures, leading many to reflect on new possibilities for enacting universal basic income through temporary or emergency interventions. We take Australia’s pandemic response, and particularly its COVID Supplement, as an example of this broader experimentation. We analyse the Supplement through the lens of an emergency basic income, arguing the measure reflected existing institutional structures and norms, forms of national and international policy learning, and vulnerabilities in Australia’s liberalized housing and labour markets. While temporary, we consider how its apparent success might suggest ongoing policy relevance, either as a form of capitalist “crisis management” or as an alternative pathway for implementing forms of basic income.
Topics:
Cash transfers
Social policies & programmes
COVID-19
Keywords:
social policy
cash benefit
COVID-19
Countries:
Australia
Introduction: Emergency basic income: Distraction or opportunity?
Authors:
Jurgen De Wispelaere
Troy Henderson
Issue:
Volume 77 (2024), Issue 1-2
This special themed issue, guest-edited by Jurgen De Wispelaere and Troy Henderson, is devoted to examining, first, whether the widespread use of immediate and unconditional cash transfers as a policy response to the socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis has provided a boost to cash transfer programmes generally and to emergency basic income (EBI) policies more specifically. The set of articles then charts the reception of EBI-type policies as a pandemic response in specific country or regional contexts, and reflects on their relevance for the future development of universal social protection and, especially, universal basic income (UBI). While the contribution to be made by basic income to realizing resilient and agile social protection policy responses merits serious consideration, in particular in a context where existing social protection systems are patchy and fragmented, important questions remain as to how to evaluate the time-limited EBI crisis response in light of the more durable needs which a permanent UBI purports to address.
Topics:
Cash transfers
Social policies & programmes
COVID-19
Keywords:
social policy
cash benefit
benefit administration
political aspect
COVID-19
Regions:
International
What role for emergency basic income in building and strengthening rights-based universal social protection systems?
Authors:
Ian Orton
Kroum Markov
Maya Plaza-Stern
Issue:
Volume 77 (2024), Issue 1-2
During the COVID-19 pandemic there were a great many social protection policy responses. There were also calls for emergency basic income (EBI) to be adopted as a mitigation response. However, it seems that only one country adopted an EBI. Nonetheless, EBI is likely to feature in future policy discussion and action, especially as a crisis-mitigation tool. This has implications for the future of rights-based social protection. Consequently, this article aims to examine whether EBI would comply with international social security standards and whether it could contribute to building and strengthening rights-based universal social protection systems.
Topics:
Cash transfers
Social protection floor
Social policies & programmes
Shocks & extreme events
Keywords:
universal benefit scheme
ILO standards
ILO Convention
social security planning
social protection
Regions:
International
The role of an emergency basic income: Lessons from the Latin American experience to confront the COVID-19 pandemic
Authors:
Claudia Robles
Bernardo Atuesta
Raquel Santos Garcia
Issue:
Volume 77 (2024), Issue 1-2
The article provides a brief overview of the social impacts of the COVID-19 crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean, presenting how these are intertwined with a structural deficit of social protection systems. It also describes the main features of the emergency social protection responses adopted by Latin American countries that are relevant to the ongoing debate on an emergency basic income. Finally, it discusses the role, implications, and challenges in implementing an emergency basic income as a sustainable entitlement, embedded in the social protection system, to be activated in times of crisis.
Topics:
Cash transfers
Social policies & programmes
COVID-19
Keywords:
social protection
COVID-19
informal economy
Latin America
Regions:
Americas
Social protection for refugees and migrants: Examining access to benefits and labour market interventions
Authors:
Karin Seyfert
Héctor Alonso
Issue:
Volume 76 (2023), Issue 4 (Special issue)
The article discusses the current practices for providing social protection to refugees and migrants, focusing primarily on low- and middle-income (LMICs) destination countries. It examines formal providers of social protection, including state institutions, development agencies and humanitarian organizations. In recent years, there has been an increase in funding from multilateral donors, especially in the context of the COVID–19 pandemic, leading to the establishment of national assistance programmes in LMICs that also encompass refugees and to a lesser extent migrant workers. International agencies play a crucial role in providing humanitarian cash assistance to refugees, given their status under international protection under the 1951 refugee Convention and related protocols. Access to social insurance remains tied to formal employment. Social insurance entitlements for migrants are often restricted and refugees are typically excluded from formal employment in LMICs. Regarding labour market interventions, refugees and migrants are often excluded from national programmes, with migrants’ residence permits being often tied to employment. For refugees, international agencies take a prominent role in providing livelihood programmes aimed at enhancing income-generating opportunities, economic inclusion and financial independence. However, the effectiveness of these interventions remains unclear, lacking rigorous evidence, and often being short-term with limited coverage.
Topics:
Extension of coverage
Difficult-to-cover groups
Keywords:
social protection
coverage
labour market
social assistance
social insurance
displaced person
refugee
migrant
Regions:
International
Extending coverage to migrant workers to advance universal social protection
Authors:
Samia Kazi-Aoul
Clara van Panhuys
Mariano Brener
Raul Ruggia-Frick
Issue:
Volume 76 (2023), Issue 4 (Special issue)
Migration is a complex phenomenon that has significant implications for migrant workers’ access to social protection and for social security systems in both origin and destination countries. As the number of migrants continues to rise worldwide, policy makers face a multitude of challenges in adapting social protection programmes to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse population. This article explores the relationship between migration and social protection, highlighting key issues and trends that have emerged in recent years. It examines the impact of migration on social security systems in both sending and receiving countries and reports on the ways in which migration patterns can create both opportunities and challenges for these systems. The article provides an overview social protection measures and gaps in selected countries and considers the need for policy makers to take account of the unique needs and circumstances of migrant populations. The article also explores the role of international cooperation in addressing the social protection challenges and opportunities posed by migration. It considers some of the emerging trends and innovations to support the governance of social protection schemes that may help to address some of the legal and practical challenges faced by migrant workers and social security institutions. The article highlights the importance of understanding the complex relationship between migration and social protection to develop policies and programmes that are responsive to the needs of all members of society, regardless of their country of origin or immigration status. It also underlines the importance of quality administration and good governance for the effective implementation of social protection measures. In support of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals agenda, a call is made for continued dialogue and collaboration among policy makers and stakeholders to ensure that social security systems are equitable, effective, inclusive, and sustainable in an increasingly globalized world.
Topics:
Extension of coverage
Migration
Keywords:
migrant workers
coverage
social protection
Regions:
International
Leaving no one behind: A case for inclusive social protection for displaced children
Authors:
Nupur Kukrety
Daniela Knoppik
Issue:
Volume 76 (2023), Issue 4 (Special issue)
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) outlines the rights for every child, including the right to benefit from social security and the right to a standard of living adequate for their physical, mental, spiritual, moral, and social development. The UNCRC is the most widely ratified human rights treaty to date. However, millions of children continue to be denied their rights and face poverty, vulnerability and social exclusion, merely because they are displaced – internally or across borders. Children bear the heaviest burden of displacement, despite not being responsible for its triggers. This reality underlines that a significant population is being “left behind”, threatening progress to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals as part of international efforts to end poverty and ensure all people enjoy peace and prosperity. This article advocates for inclusive social protection systems for displaced children by highlighting the difficulties they encounter, emphasizing the potential benefits of social protection, and assessing the current status of inclusive social protection for this vulnerable group. Drawing on emerging lessons from UNICEF’s experience across several refugee and internal displacement contexts, such as Brazil, Ethiopia, Slovakia, and Türkiye, the article also offers recommendations to strengthen inclusive social protection systems specifically tailored to meet the humanitarian and development needs of displaced children.
Topics:
Children
Extension of coverage
Difficult-to-cover groups
Keywords:
social protection
children
displaced person
gaps in coverage
UN Convention
Regions:
International
Extending social protection to migrant workers in the region of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC): An analysis of enablers and barriers
Authors:
Christina Lowe
Jessica Hagen-Zanker
Caterina Mazzilli
Lea Bou Khater
Luca Pellerano
Abigail Hunt
Issue:
Volume 76 (2023), Issue 4 (Special issue)
This article explores factors influencing the extension of social protection to migrant workers in the region of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC). While there are some indications of new momentum for reforms, we find that reforms to address gaps in legal social protection coverage have historically been hindered by the very design of the migration system, including the assumed short-term migration time frame and over reliance on employer-sponsored provisions, as well as the political economy in the region, which translates into a segmented labour market and associated social protection entitlements for national and migrant workers, and limited channels for migrant worker representation. Despite some new mechanisms being developed, labour dispute and judicial systems are often ineffective in protecting workers and their families when benefits are not paid. Bureaucratic, financial, language, documentation and geographic barriers constitute further obstacles to migrant workers’ access to social protection in practice. The article closes with key policy implications, including measures for: developing comprehensive legal provisions in line with international standards and principles as well as the commitments to leave no one behind and to ensure social protection for all in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; addressing practical barriers, power imbalances and outreach, monitoring and enforcement gaps; and strengthening dialogue and collaboration between all actors, including GCC and country of origin governments, employers, workers, and wider stakeholders advocating for migrant workers’ rights.
Topics:
Extension of coverage
Migration
Labour protection
Keywords:
migrant workers
coverage
social protection
Gulf States
Gulf Cooperation Council
Regions:
Arab Countries
The extension of social health protection to refugees
Authors:
Aviva Ron
Dorit Nitzan
Issue:
Volume 76 (2023), Issue 4 (Special issue)
The target populations to be covered in this article on the extension of social protection coverage are refugees, as defined by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Our approach to their coverage is based on the pillars of public health and social protection, which together provide the rationale and legislative basis for coverage. The social protection benefits to be covered are comprehensive health services, providing entitlement to services without conditions such as prior contributions or duration of residence. Refugees are vulnerable since they come from conflict areas or go through persecution and personal threat. They carry grief from the loss of family members and friends, property and livelihood, and social and cultural support. Some have sustained injuries before rescue and evacuation and need additional care. They may have chronic diseases and need medications they can no longer access. Some may have communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis, and children may have missed scheduled mandatory vaccinations. Refugees are vulnerable to new and re-emerging infections, as seen in the COVID–19 pandemic. While the focus in this article is on providing health care, the social determinants of health are addressed, including access to education, employment with decent working conditions, and safe environments. We focus on coverage by national authorities and institutions, legislative amendments to enable entitlement to non-citizens, and provide national examples. Experience has shown that coverage is feasible with the assistance and guidance of international and local organizations and associations and with an acceptance by the existing social protection institutions of the benefits of extending coverage to new members. This article concurs with the principle and pledge of the 2030 Social Development Goals of the United Nations to “leave no one behind”.
Topics:
Health
Extension of coverage
Difficult-to-cover groups
Keywords:
social protection
health
refugee
coverage
Regions:
International
Leaving no one behind: Why social protection must include displaced people
Authors:
Mattia Polvanesi
Issue:
Volume 76 (2023), Issue 4 (Special issue)
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has the mandate to save lives and build better futures for millions of forcibly displaced and stateless people. This contribution sets out UNHCR’s mandated roles concerning displaced population groups and details the nature of the humanitarian and human development challenges that confront the international community. In this important regard, the social protection coverage extension objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Global Partnership for Universal Social Protection (USP), to leave no one behind, are considered essential.
Topics:
Extension of coverage
Difficult-to-cover groups
Social protection floor
Keywords:
displaced person
refugee
social protection
gaps in coverage
UN Convention
Regions:
International
Introduction: To leave no one behind: Social security coverage for displaced populations and migrant workers
Authors:
Roddy McKinnon
Issue:
Volume 76 (2023), Issue 4 (Special issue)
This 2023 special issue of the International Social Security Review contributes to the core debate framed by the international ambition of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to leave no one behind and does so through the lens of social security coverage extension. Specifically, the special issue addresses the social security rights of selected population groups prioritized by the current programme of work of the International Social Security Association; namely, displaced populations, amongst whom children represent a significant proportion, and international migrant workers. Implicit in this choice is a wish to collate, analyse, enrich, and disseminate knowledge to forge a stronger consensus to help realize effective social security coverage for all.
Topics:
Extension of coverage
Social protection floor
Keywords:
displaced person
refugee
children
migrant workers
social protection
coverage
coverage gaps
UN Convention
labour standards
Regions:
International
Improving the protection of migrant workers with work histories in the European Union and Ibero-America: Enhancing the coordination of international social security instruments
Authors:
Daniela Zavando Cerda
Laura Gómez Urquijo
Issue:
Volume 76 (2023), Issue 3
Migration affects almost every nation, emphasizing the need to guarantee social security rights for all migrants and their families. This article focuses on the rights of workers who migrate between the countries of the European Union (EU) and the Ibero-American Community. In the EU, social security systems are increasingly coordinated through Regulation No. 883/2004 and its Implementing Regulation No. 987/2009. In the Ibero-American Community, coordination is sought through the Ibero-American Social Security Convention. Despite convergence between these two international instruments, coordination is still lacking between them. This article presents a comparative analysis to articulate the necessary mechanisms to guarantee coordination, to respect the social security rights of migrant workers. We focus on the cooperation and coordination between regional as well as national systems, specifically looking at the need for and aims of a rapprochement between these two major international coordination instruments to provide greater Euro-Ibero-American cooperation. Finally, the importance of promoting greater international cooperation in social security policy and administration is highlighted, to engender the adequate protection of the rights as well as the free movement of migrant workers.
Topics:
Extension of coverage
Migration
Bilateral agreements
Keywords:
migrant worker
social security administration
ILO Convention
social security legislation
European Union
Latin America
Regions:
Europe
Americas
The expected impact of the 2019 Brazilian pension reform on survivors’ pensions
Authors:
Rodrigo Souza Silva
Luís Eduardo Afonso
Issue:
Volume 76 (2023), Issue 3
This study analyses the expected changes in survivors’ pensions resulting from the permanent rules of the 2019 pension reform in Brazil. Actuarial annuities are used for representative worker profiles. The dispersion in the replacement rate values decreases, except for the highest income level. The rates needed to finance survivors’ pensions decrease relatively more than do the rates for old-age pensions. The internal rates of return significantly decrease. There is a heterogeneous change in the distributive aspects of the pension system. The reform shall affect the adequacy and intragenerational equity of old-age and survivors’ pensions.
Topics:
Survivors
Actuarial
Keywords:
social security reform
pension scheme
survivors benefits
risk of survivors
retirement
Countries:
Brazil
Digital social security accounts for platform workers: The case of Estonia’s entrepreneur account
Authors:
Johanna Vallistu
Issue:
Volume 76 (2023), Issue 3
Advancements in technology enable new opportunities for creating digital social security accounts, but the effectiveness of these to solve the accessibility and eligibility issues facing platform workers has not been assessed fully in the literature. The potential of digital social security accounts lies in their ability to consider the possible different streams of income of atypical workers and to improve the effective access of these workers to social security. Tax and social security offices can now exchange information on the income of platform workers in real time, which offers the promise of formalizing the previously informal casual work relationships of the self-employed. This article explores the case of the Estonian entrepreneur account as a digital hybrid solution for improving the effective access to social security of platform workers. Digital portable accounts create the conditions for the structural improvement required to respond adequately to meet the changing social security needs of atypical workers. However, this also requires that the policy design be thought through carefully, to avoid digital portable accounts being simply a digital facilitator of outdated solutions.
Topics:
Extension of coverage
Platform workers
Keywords:
social security planning
coverage
gaps in coverage
self-employed
atypical work
platform workers
labour market
Countries:
Estonia
Pension financialization and collective risk sharing in Canada and Finland
Authors:
Jyri Liukko
Aaron Doyle
Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen
Issue:
Volume 76 (2023), Issue 3
This article contributes to the debate concerning pension financialization and how countries are adapting their pension systems to respond to demographic ageing. We do so by examining the statutory pension systems of Canada and Finland, which diverge interestingly from current international trends. The Canadian and Finnish public pension schemes reflect two tendencies often associated with pension financialization: an increasing reliance on financial markets and an investment policy with a diversified asset allocation. However, unlike in many other countries, this has not resulted in heightened individual risks in old-age income security caused by a shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pensions – an otherwise common trend internationally.
Topics:
Old-age pensions
Investment
Financing
Keywords:
pension scheme
social security scheme
social security financing
social insurance
privatization
investment policy
Countries:
Canada
Finland
The limits of parametric reforms in sustaining the Algerian retirement system in a context of population ageing
Authors:
Farid Flici
Issue:
Volume 76 (2023), Issue 3
Accelerated population ageing in Algeria threatens the financial sustainability of its pay-as-you-go retirement system. Reform is a necessity, with options ranging from simple parametric reforms to important systemic changes. Prior to undertaking systemic reforms, it is worthwhile to investigate whether parametric reforms can place the system on a financially sustainable footing. In this article, we used a multi-scenario analysis that crosses the possible reform actions with possible socioeconomic scenarios. The results show that when using the most favourable scenarios, the financial balance of the Algerian system will remain negative in the short and long term. Implementing major parametric reforms can only help reduce the deficit and make it stable over time. Thereafter, systemic reforms will have to be implemented.