IZA - Institute of Labor Economics (April 2024) We use detailed, population-wide data from Finland to provide evidence of the impact of earnings disregard policies on part-time work during unemployment spells, and describe the longer-run trends in combining part-time work and social benefits. We find that part-time work while receiving unemployment benefits is strongly concentrated in the service and social and health care sectors, and that women participate in part-time work much more commonly than men (25% vs. 12% of benefit recipients). The share of part-time workers among benefit recipients increased sharply from 10% to 18% over a few years after the implementation of earnings disregards in unemployment benefits and housing allowances, which allowed individuals to earn up to 300 euros per month without reductions in their benefits. Using variation in the impact of the reforms on incentives between individuals eligible for different types of benefits, we estimate a 16–28% increase in participation in part-time work due to the implementation of earnings disregards. However, we find no evidence of economically significant positive or negative effects of increased participation in part-time work on transitions to full-time employment.

bbc.com (08.04.2024) People are living longer, and daily life is getting more expensive. It may be time to rethink the timeline for leaving the workforce. Handing in your proverbial badge as a sexagenarian has been the goal for many workers around the world: turning 65 would open a golden portal to retirement. Yet increasingly, the idea of stepping away from the workforce in your 60s doesn't seem realistic – or even sensible – for many people, especially now. Some major financial figureheads agree. In March, investment-management firm BlackRock released its annual letter to the company's investors. Its CEO Larry Fink sounded a warning for workers hoping to retire – comfortably and financially secure – in their 60s. As global life expectancy grows, social safety nets fray and cost of living spikes, Fink warned that retirement at age 65 won't be possible for many, even most, people.

ipsnews.net (05.04.2024) Climate change is exacerbating inequalities between and within countries, disproportionately affecting poor households in rural areas. In fact, we know that more than half of the resources of the poor – a large part of whom are small-scale farmers – are lost due to climatic hazards. This has negative impacts on the incomes of these people and their ability to meet their essential needs, including food. As the new FAO report The Unjust Climate finds, floods widen the income gap between poor and non-poor households in rural areas by approximately USD 21 billion a year, and heat stress by more than USD 20 billion a year. Despite the critically important role that small-scale farmers play in growing the food that feeds us and in stewarding the natural resources that determine the health of planet Earth, only 1.7 % of climate finance currently reaches them Every year, over a trillion dollars are allocated to combating climate change and its consequences. Far too little of this financing reaches the most vulnerable. Shockingly, despite the critically important role that small-scale farmers play in growing the food that feeds us and in stewarding the natural resources that determine the health of planet Earth, only 1.7 % of climate finance currently reaches them.

oecd (22.03.2024) Generative artificial intelligence (AI) presents myriad opportunities for integrity actors—anti-corruption agencies, supreme audit institutions, internal audit bodies and others—to enhance the impact of their work, particularly through the use of large language models (LLMS). As this type of AI becomes increasingly mainstream, it is critical for integrity actors to understand both where generative AI and LLMs can add the most value and the risks they pose. To advance this understanding, this paper draws on input from the OECD integrity and anti-corruption communities and provides a snapshot of the ways these bodies are using generative AI and LLMs, the challenges they face, and the insights these experiences offer to similar bodies in other countries. The paper also explores key considerations for integrity actors to ensure trustworthy AI systems and responsible use of AI as their capacities in this area develop.

SundayWorld.com (05.04.2024) Up to 800,000 workers will be automatically enrolled into a pension scheme for the first time under new legislation published today. Workers who have no occupational or private pension and would have otherwise been solely reliant on the State Pension upon retirement will have access to the scheme under the bill. Employees aged between 23 and 60 years old, who earn over €20,000 per year and who are not already paying into a pension scheme, would automatically be enrolled.

theportugalnews.com (30.03.2024) Heather Humphreys, the minister for social protection, has outlined her plan to implement the much-anticipated pension auto-enrolment programme for workers. Under the plan, businesses would match employee contributions with an additional €3, meaning that the State will contribute €1 for every €3 an employee contributes to their pension account. Workers between the ages of 23 and 60 who are not currently registered in a pension plan will be enrolled automatically.

forbes.com (20.03.2024) Africa is the most youthful continent, with 70% of sub-Saharan Africa under age 30. With high fertility rates and objections to birth control, the youth population will continue to grow. Investing in young people is important for the continent’s transformation, but Africa also needs to prepare for a growing older population that will present new issues in the decades ahead. By the end of this century, Africa will be home to almost 40% of the world’s population, including a 15-fold growth in older adults, from 46 million today to 694 million. Continuing progress in public health and medicine promises to make that population boom and longevity possible. However, this demographic phenomenon can be expected to strain families, communities, and nations, with the incidence of aging-associated diseases climbing to all-time highs.

worldbank.org (29.02.2024) This report documents the progress that Pakistanhas made so far in improving its systems fordelivering social protection to its people. Thegovernment has increasingly relied on dataand technology to increase the efficiency andeffectiveness of the program. BISP UCT (Kafaalat),the country’s largest social assistance program interms of both budget allocation and number ofbeneficiaries, has been responsible for the mostinnovative developments in the delivery of benefits.Its delivery systems have evolved significantly overtime expanding in scope from simply delivering theUCT to becoming a system that other programs canleverage to identify beneficiaries and deliver benefits.It has flexibility to be scaled up, both horizontallyand vertically, in times of shock. This did not happenovernight: the government has consistently investedtime and resources over the past decade and a halfto improve how it functions. By documenting thatjourney, using the Social Protection Delivery ChainFramework developed by the World Bank in the“Sourcebook on the Foundations of Social ProtectionDelivery Systems,” (Lindert et al. 2020), this reportcan be a resource for domestic and internationalstakeholders.

economist.com (21.03.2024) Most European countries have been making parental leave more generous since the 1980s. The eu sets a statutory minimum of 14 weeks leave for mothers and, since 2022, two weeks for fathers. But many member states offer leave that is much longer: the average across the eu is 21 weeks for women and three weeks for men, but lengths vary wildly. Paternity leave has been changing the most. Nordic countries were the first to introduce it by statute. Sweden had in 1974 introduced shared paid leave that could be taken by either parent; it now amounts to 69 weeks. In the 1990s Norway became the first country to reserve four weeks of the paid parental leave for fathers, and Sweden followed two years later. Every eu country has done the same since then.

capacity4dev.europa.eu (28.02.2024) In examining data for 106 countries from the 1980s onwards, it transpires that social protection is the most countercyclical type of public expenditure and that social assistance spending has typically been more responsive during economic contractions. Preliminary data suggests that social protection spending has been more adaptive during the COVID-19 pandemic than it was following the global financial and economic crisis of 2007–2009;it is expressed by the adoption of countercyclical policy interventions in both developed and developing economies, with a strong expansion of non-contributory interventions. The discussion  reviews recent policy innovations that were introduced during the COVID-19  pandemic to track the impact of the socio-economic crisis and identify potential beneficiaries. These innovations demonstrate that governments can respond to a crisis in a timely manner and even reach individuals who are typically outside the scope of social protection (e.g. informal workers). The overarching conclusion of the paper is that new data and methodologies, which are becoming increasingly available and have been used in other areas of policy interventions, can improve the adaptability of social protection systems. Especially where informality is high, these innovations will enable developing countries to address a lack of information about the social protection needs and loss of income of the population. While the full potential of novel technologies has yet to transpire, in the meantime the socio-economic conditions of informal workers will be better known to governments, thus facilitating social protection (and taxation) mechanisms of greater pertinence.

oecd (11.03.2024) Increasingly, countries are integrating personalised public services to enhance access to, and the experience of those services to significantly improve outcomes for service users. Integrated services are particularly valuable for those with multiple and complex needs who require a range of tailored and, in some cases, specialised supports and services from more than one agency or service provider. Service specialisation can make it difficult for these service users to get the right mix of services and at the right time that best meet their needs. This paper provides a summary of how countries are integrating services to improve the lives and outcomes of care experienced by young people, people with disabilities, and people leaving prison. The paper is intended for policymakers who are seeking new or improved approaches to improving the outcomes of those who rely on personalised services.

finance.yahoo.com (12.03.2024) Governments across Asia—in Singapore and Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul—are facing a crisis: plummeting birth rates. For several decades now, people in East Asian economies have had fewer and fewer children. Last year, South Korea beat its own record for having the world’s lowest birth rate, reporting 0.72 births per woman for 2023, down from 0.78 in 2022. Singapore reported 0.97 births per woman, the first time the rate has fallen below one. Japan has one of the world’s oldest populations, with a median age of 49.5. Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China are all reporting falling birth rates as well. All of these economies have fertility rates far below 2.1, the “replacement rate” which allows for a stable population. They haven’t reported a rate above 2.1 for years, if not decades. A low birth rate leads to a shrinking population, and a smaller workforce to produce the goods and services that lead to economic growth. Slower economic activity results in drops in fiscal revenue, giving fewer resources to a government that now needs to provide welfare for a growing elderly population.

oecd (14.03.2024) This report analyses the sequence of labour market support that individuals receive and evaluates two large public works programmes. It uses rich administrative data and finds positive labour market impacts of the Community Employment and Tús employment programmes. Building on the results of the analyses, the report makes recommendations on how Ireland can further adapt its active labour market policies (ALMPs) to better support its current and future jobseekers. This report on Ireland is the thirteenth country study published in a series of reports on policies to connect people with jobs, and is part of a joint project with the European Commission to strengthen countries’ capacity to evaluate ALMPs.

blogs.worldbank.org (12.12.2023)  In Mali, the Jigisemejiri Emergency Social Safety Net Program is protecting the poorest and most vulnerable rural households from the impact of economic shocks and other crises. Since the program’s launch in 2013, the Government of Mali, with support from the World Bank including IDA grants of $122.4 million total, has provided cash transfers to more than 103,000 households to enable them to meet their urgent needs while investing in their children’s human capital and building their resilience to shocks. 

consilium.europa.eu (11.03.2024) EU employment and social affairs ministers confirmed the provisional agreement reached on 8 February 2024 between the Council’s presidency and the European Parliament’s negotiators on the platform work directive. This EU legal act aims to improve working conditions and regulate the use of algorithms by digital labour platforms. The 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.

Swiss voters have given themselves an extra month's pension each year - in a nationwide referendum focusing on living standards for the elderly. The government had warned that the increased payments would be too expensive to afford. But almost 60% of voters said 'yes' in Sunday's poll. Separately, 75% rejected raising the pension age from 65 to 66. The maximum monthly state pension is €2,550 (£2,180; $2,760) - not enough, many say, to live on in Switzerland.

ilo.org (31.12.2023) This paper discusses the expansion or penetration of digital economic activity in the context of developing economies, and what this may mean for economic or structural transformations for countries in the global South. We ask what possibilities new jobs and forms of work in the digital economy hold – in particular platform work – for the productive transformation of economies in ways that contribute to achieving the goals of human, inclusive and sustainable development. What are the impacts on work and workers in this process? The question of whether a ‘digital transformation’ can spur development and, if so, how and to whose benefit, depends in large part on the nature of employment created, and whether labour can move to higher-productivity sectors which raise incomes while also strengthening the capacity to finance public goods and services, including social protection.

la-croix.com (03.03.2024) La Suisse, dont la population vieillissante est confrontée à un coût de la vie en hausse, a voté dimanche en faveur d'un 13ème mois de retraite, un pas "historique" selon ses défenseurs, mais a rejeté le relèvement de l'âge du départ.

bnnbreaking.com (26.02.2024) The World Bank recommends mandatory retirement savings for digital platform workers in Malaysia to safeguard informal workers in the gig economy. Explore the challenges faced by informal workers and the government's response to ensure economic security.

cornell.edu (05.02.2024) The Future of India’s Social Safety Nets: Focus, Form, and Scope explains how an array of social welfare programs (comprising the safety net) have emerged as a leitmotif of social policy in independent India and explores the key challenges and scope for innovations in redesigning India’s social safety net system for the future. This open-access book provides a comprehensive analysis of India’s safety net by combining insights from a wealth of interdisciplinary scholarship on economic development, social protection, and the social policy process. It unpacks India’s social welfare programs in terms of their three essential aspects—focus (intended beneficiaries), form (transfer modalities), and scope (developmental objectives). Highlighting the developmental achievements and shortcomings of these independent schemes, the book proposes a framework to foster human resilience through social protection. Lessons from this book are equally relevant for other developing countries as they seek to build an efficient social safety net system.