The Social Security Media Monitor offers a selection of social security news articles from media around the world. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, the ISSA is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Report: Is Care Affordable for Older People?
oecd (29.10.2024) With population ageing, the demand for helping older people with daily activities – so-called long-term care – is set to increase across OECD countries by more than one-third by 2050. Older people with long-term care needs are more likely to be women, 80-years-old and above, live in single households, and have lower incomes than the average. Currently, across OECD countries, publicly funded long-term care systems still leave almost half of older people with care needs at risk of poverty, particularly those with severe care needs and low income. Out-of-pocket costs represent, on average, 70% of an older person’s median income across the OECD. This report suggests avenues to improve funding to make long-term care systems better able to meet the demand for their services, and suggests policy options to improve the targeting of benefits and seek efficiency gains to contain the costs of long-term care.
Mexico: Government begins work to promote initiative on app workers
AméricaEconomía (14.10.2024) The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, established in her 59th commitment to promote a reform to the Federal Labor Law (LFT) to provide social security to workers through a digital platform, so the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) began meetings with workers in this sector in order to advance the content of the proposal.
The agency headed by Marath Bolaños called this week the groups of digital platform workers to a meeting to present the proposal, which should be ready this month.
“Commitments 59. This month we will submit the bill to guarantee the mandatory social security for workers who deliver telephone applications,” the president said on October 1.
Health and Long-Term Care Needs in a Context of Rapid Population Aging
worldbank.org (16.10.2024) This paper identifies key challenges in health care and long-term care as populations age and provides examples of how countries are responding to them. The paper focuses on developing countries that are aging fast, where anticipation and action are especially important. The paper highlights the need for a holistic strategy that focuses on strengthening health care and long-term care systems and achieving universal care coverage, moving from a disease-centered approach to a person-centered one. But such a strategy should not focus exclusively on the older population. To solve the challenges brought by population aging, younger populations should not be forgotten. How people age is, to a large extent, determined by their health earlier in life and the choices they made when young. The range of policies should therefore promote healthy lifestyles, like physical activity and healthy eating, throughout the entire life course. A healthy aging agenda contributes to containing the costs associated with aging populations.
Special Issue: Exploring unemployment insurance for the self-employed and platform workers - European Journal of Social Security
Special Issue: Exploring unemployment insurance for the self-employed and platform workers - European Journal of Social Security - Volume 26, Number 2, Jun 01, 2024
Platform workers: Council adopts new rules to improve their working conditions
consilium.europa.eu (14.10.2024) The Council has adopted new rules that aim to improve working conditions for the more than 28 million people working in digital labour platforms across the EU.
The platform work directive will make the use of algorithms in human resources management more transparent, ensuring that automated systems are monitored by qualified staff and that workers have the right to contest automated decisions.
It will also help correctly determine the employment status of persons working for platforms, enabling them to benefit from any labour rights they are entitled to. Member states will establish a legal presumption of employment in their legal systems that will be triggered when certain facts indicating control and direction are found.
Malaysia expands social protection coverage to foreign workers
ilo.org (02.10.2024) Invalidity and survivors’ benefits have recently been extended to migrant workers in Malaysia effective 1 July 2024. The ILO’s Simon Brimblecombe explains why this is an important step forward that will benefit workers, employers, and Malaysia alike.
US: Kamala Harris’s big policy proposal is care
the.ink (10.10.2024) With a transformative announcement on paying for long-term care for older Americans, Harris aims to make the care economy a reality
Integrating Internal Migrants in Social Protection Systems: Review on Good Practices to Inform Adaptive Social Protection Programs in the Sahel
worldbank.org (07.10.2024) Internal migration. characterized by the movement of people within national borders, is a significant and growing phenomenon, with an estimated 763 million internal migrants globally as of 2013, and 71.1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) by the end of 2022. These numbers will continue to increase due to factors such as urbanization and climate change. Estimates suggest that by 2045, the number of people living in cities worldwide will increase 1.5 times, to 6 billion (World Bank, 2019). Despite the potential social protection programs have in playing a positive supporting role for different types of migrants, their families and communities, and the economy, these interventions often fail to adequately address the needs of internal migrants and IDPs, who face unique challenges in accessing and benefiting from such support. This paper examines the barriers that internal migrants and IDPs encounter in relation to social protection programs and highlights best practices from global experiences in integrating migration considerations into the key components of social protection Systems. To overcome these challenges, the paper suggests several solutions, such as reforming eligibility criteria to explicitly include internal migrants, utilizing dynamic social registries to enable information updates, and designing migrant-inclusive support packages that take into consideration, for instance, the timings of participation. It also emphasizes the importance of portability and continuity of services, flexible program implementation, and effective outreach and communication strategies to ensure migrants are informed of their entitlements and can access services regardless of location.
Singapore: Paid parental leave coming in 2025
wtwco.com (30.08.2024) In an effort to address dramatically low birth rates, Singapore proposes new employer-paid leave to support working parents that would be rolled out in two phases starting in 2025.
Investigating social protection amongst platform workers in Germany: forced individualisation, hybrid income generation and undesired regulation
researchgate.net (September 2024) The social protection of platform workers is considered one of the most precarious features and political challenges of this new form of employment. Still, there have only been a few empirical investigations on this issue to date. This article presents an explorative empirical analysis of the social protection of platform workers in Germany - a conservative welfare regime with a strong link between standard employment and institutionalised social protection. On the basis of an online survey amongst 719 self-employed platform workers, we examine how different employment patterns correspond to institutionalised protection against sickness and old age. We empirically explore different protection types and analyse how they differ regarding working conditions in platform work and individual social policy preferences. Findings reveal that conditions of platform work and social protection as well as demands and regulatory preferences vary notably across different clusters of platform workers. Still, the vast majority votes against obligatory social insurances for platform workers and favours self-employment over dependent employment. Against this background, we discuss challenges for future attempts aiming at improving social protection for platform workers. This study adds to the literature by empirically exploring platform workers' social protection and social policy preferences, which have been overlooked to date.
South Korea: Improving family leave benefits to boost birth rates
wtwco.com (24.09.2024) With fertility rates among the lowest in the world, South Korea looks to jumpstart more births by boosting paid parental leave benefits and childcare entitlements.
China's retirement age reforms not enough to fix pension headache
reuters (24.09.2024) China's move to raise retirement ages is a starting point to plug gaping pension deficits and bolster a shrinking workforce but more pain lies ahead as the economy slows, making further reforms urgent, say economists and demographers.
Aging populations are a global phenomenon, but the issue is particularly stark in China due to the legacy of its one-child-policy, which was in place for three decades and has exacerbated its demographic challenges.
Dutch pension funds to report CO2 reduction progress
ipe.com 817.09.2024) Pension funds should report annually about the progress they make in meeting their CO2 reduction targets. They must also provide more insight into their sustainable investments, Dutch pension regulator DNB announced on its website.
India is formalising measures to protect the rights of gig and platform workers
ullekhnp.com (20.09.2024) The latest announcement from the Union labour ministry is that it has asked technology-based platforms and aggregators to get all gig workers engaged by them to register on the e-Shram portal, a centralised database of informal workers, where they can avail of health insurance and other facilities, including unemployment benefits, maternity benefits, and accident injury coverage through the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC).
As of now, gig workers are eligible only for minimum social-security benefits. A July 2024 statement from the government stated that “for the first time, the definition of ‘gig workers’ and ‘platform workers’ has been provided in the Code on Social Security, 2020.” Code on Social Security is one of the four codes that the Union government has brought in with the aim of consolidating previous labour laws. These four deal with wages, social security, industrial relations, and occupational safety.
Parental Leave: Economic Incentives and Cultural Change
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics (August 2024) The distribution of parental leave uptake and childcare activities continues to conform to traditional gender roles. In 2002, with the goal of increasing gender equality, Sweden added a second "daddy month," i.e., an additional month of pay-related parental leave reserved exclusively for each parent. This policy increased men's parental leave uptake and decreased women's, thereby increasing men's share. To understand how various factors contributed to these outcomes, we develop and estimate a quantitative model of the household in which preferences towards parental leave respond to peer behavior. We distinguish households by the education of the parents and ask the model to match key features of the parental leave distribution before and after the reform by gender and household type (the parents' education). We find that changed incentives and, especially, changed social norms played an important role in generating these outcomes whereas changed wage parameters, including the future wage penalty associated with different lengths of parental leave uptake, were minor contributors. We then use our model to evaluate three counterfactual policies designed to increase men's share of parental leave and conclude that giving each parent a non-transferable endowment of parental leave or only paying for the length of time equally taken by each parent would both dramatically increase men's share whereas decreasing childcare costs has almost no effect.
Étude comparative des dépenses et du financement de la protection sociale en France et en Allemagne
oecd (13.09.2024) Les dépenses sociales publiques ont triplé en 60 ans, atteignant 21 % du PIB en 2022, mais avec des variations significatives entre les pays de l'OCDE. Cette hausse à long terme est liée au développement des États-providence, au vieillissement de la population et à une succession de chocs économiques qui ont entraîné des augmentations progressives des ratios de dépenses sociales par rapport au PIB, dont ils ne se sont que partiellement remis. Ce document compare les systèmes de protection sociale en France et en Allemagne, en analysant les règles institutionnelles, l'efficacité des programmes, les sources de financement, et l'impact des politiques fiscales et sociales sur différents types de familles. Il évalue également les réformes depuis 2015, en se concentrant sur les revenus des ménages, les incitations au travail et les coûts de la main-d'œuvre.
Aging and Health: Policy Considerations for Long-term Care
worldbank.org (12.09,2024) Providing care for older parents or parents-in-law significantly reduces the probability of employment and annual earnings, particularly among women and intensive caregivers, which remains the most prevalent form of long-term care (LTC) for older adults. Addressing the growing care needs of older adults requires increasing coordination, integration, and capacity building within the health and long-term care systems. Engaging the private sector can help bridge the gap between supply and demand of LTC. Governments play a crucial role in providing and regulating LTC services, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where progress has been slow and uneven. Many countries have taken steps towards implementing LTC services, but more is needed to improve access, affordability, and quality of services. A person-centered approach with multiple options supports greater access to LTC services.
China to gradually raise retirement age
Xinhua (13.09.2024) Chinese lawmakers on Friday voted to adopt a decision on gradually raising the statutory retirement age in the country, marking the first adjustment in the arrangement since 1950s.
According to the decision adopted at the 11th session of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress, the statutory retirement age for men will be gradually raised from 60 to 63 in the course of 15 years starting 2025, while that for women cadres and women blue-collar workers will be raised from 55 to 58 and from 50 to 55, respectively.
Securing access to long-term care without hardship as an integral part of universal social protection systems
ilo.org (01.04.2024) This brief presents the role of universal social protection in securing access to long-term care (LTC). Effective LTC financing strategies include dedicated schemes, top-up pension benefits, expansion of disability benefits, and integration within social health protection packages. Defining a comprehensive benefits package and ensuring financial protection are crucial, with international standards recommending minimal copayments to avoid hardship. High out-of-pocket payments can impoverish older adults and erode insufficient pensions. Addressing knowledge gaps is vital for evidence-based policies, especially for low- and middle-income countries, as most data on LTC pertains to high-income nations. Ensuring universal health coverage and extending social health protection, particularly for groups most affected by climate change, is urgently needed.
Social protection plays a key role in countering climate change impact but countries most impacted by the climate crisis are the least prepared
International Labour Organization (12.09.2024) Governments must do more to utilize universal social protection to adapt to and mitigate the impact of climate change and achieve a just transition, according to a new ILO report.