First published in 1948, the International Social Security Review is the principal international quarterly publication in the field of social security.
Introduction: Social security, social cohesion and inclusive growth
Authors:
Roddy McKinnon
Issue:
Volume 73 (2020), Issue 3 (Special issue)
This special issue selectively addresses the relationship linking social security systems, inclusive growth and social cohesion. Inclusive growth and social cohesion are viewed as political expedient and necessary goals for national economies. The desirability of their attainment reflects political pragmatism, the “social contract”, as much as it does a commitment to the wider emancipative goal of social justice. The International Social Security Association (ISSA) has often paraphrased these assertions to argue that there can be “no social justice without social security”. Of course, progress achieved towards the realization of the goals of inclusive growth and social cohesion should be equally beneficial for the adequacy, sustainability and coverage of social security systems. The aim of this special issue is to unpack and better understand the nature of this relationship.
Topics:
Social policies & programmes
Keywords:
social security schemes
social development
economic development
social cohesion
economic growth
social contract
Regions:
International
Social protection and revenue collection: How they can jointly contribute to strengthening social cohesion
Authors:
Francesco Burchi
Armin von Schiller
Christoph Strupat
Issue:
Volume 73 (2020), Issue 3 (Special issue)
Social protection and revenue collection are often regarded as potential drivers of social cohesion. The article joins this debate, providing three main contributions. First, we carefully discuss the concept of social cohesion and endorse one specific definition. Second, we propose using the concept of the “fiscal contract” as the key theoretical lens to understand the often neglected potential joint effects of social protection and revenue collection policies on social cohesion. Third, we illustrate three main mechanisms through which these policies can have positive or negative impacts on the different components of social cohesion and highlight how relevant it is for policy-makers to carefully think about these.
Topics:
Contribution collection and compliance
Social policies & programmes
Keywords:
social cohesion
social protection
collection of contributions
fiscal policy
public finance
taxation
Regions:
International
China’s social security response to COVID-19: Wider lessons learnt for social security’s contribution to social cohesion and inclusive economic development
Authors:
Xiaoyan Qian
Issue:
Volume 73 (2020), Issue 3 (Special issue)
China has adopted an array of special social security measures in response to the spread of the COVID-19 virus, to mitigate the downside social and economic impacts caused by the pandemic. Measures include the reduction, exemption and deferral of social security contributions by employers, the extension of benefits coverage for employees, and the provision of more accessible e-services by social insurance agencies. The article points out that a preliminary assessment of those measures would suggest that they have played a key role in supporting social cohesion and in stabilising the economy. In a critical manner, the article compares the measures adopted in China with those of other countries, and identifies how China could learn from international practice and experience. Finally, and based on recent Chinese experience, the article presents proposals that seek to improve the longer-term contribution made by the Chinese social security system to realise the goals of social cohesion and inclusive economic development. As set out in China’s Social Insurance Law of 2010, the social security system should not only support a fair sharing of benefits of development, but also promote social harmony and stability.
Topics:
Social policies & programmes
Shocks & extreme events
Keywords:
social security administration
social development
economic development
social cohesion
prevention
Countries:
China
Social assistance and inclusive growth
Authors:
Armando Barrientos
Daniele Malerba
Issue:
Volume 73 (2020), Issue 3 (Special issue)
The expansion of social assistance in low- and middle-income countries raises important issues for inclusive growth. Labour is by far the principal asset of low-income groups. Changes in the quantity, quality, and allocation of labour associated with social assistance will impact on the productive capacity of low-income groups and therefore on inclusive growth. The article re-assesses the findings reported by impact evaluations of social assistance in low- and middle-income countries to address this issue. Most studies have tested for potentially adverse labour supply incentive effects from transfers but have failed to find supportive evidence. The article highlights findings from this literature on the effects of social assistance on human capital accumulation and labour reallocation. They point to the conclusion that well-designed and well-implemented social assistance contributes to inclusive growth.
Topics:
Social assistance
Social policies & programmes
Keywords:
social assistance
poverty
standard of living
social development
economic development
Regions:
International
A multivariable definition of adequacy: Challenges and opportunities
Authors:
Simon Brimblecombe
Issue:
Volume 66 (2013), Issue 3-4
The adoption of the International Labour Organization Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection, 2012 (No. 202) highlights the global importance of the extension of social security coverage. To maximize the positive impacts of coverage extension, not only should benefits and services be provided to the widest number of people and cover the greatest number of risks, but benefits have to be adequate. Whilst not without challenges, the level of coverage can be defined and measured. However, the definition of what is an adequate benefit is often less clear and has often relied on the use of one measure – the replacement ratio – to determine the relative adequacy of cash benefits. Given the multiple aims of social security systems, the use of a broader measure of adequacy that goes beyond cash benefit levels is not only more appropriate but necessary. In a context where financial constraints are arguably greater than ever, this article looks at the importance of adequacy and why such a broader consideration is required to measure the other aspects of benefit and service provision. It highlights how such a multivariable analysis could be constructed and the challenges of doing so. By attempting to measure if other goals of benefit provision are met – including quality of service, labour market aims, security of benefits and interaction with other stakeholders – the article seeks to contribute to widening the debate.
Topics:
Social protection floor
Keywords:
adequacy
benefit
benefit in kind
benefit administration
recommendation
ISSA
ILO
Regions:
International
Revisiting policies to achieve progress towards universal health coverage in low‐income countries: Realizing the pay‐offs of national social protection floors
Authors:
Xenia Scheil‐Adlung
Issue:
Volume 66 (2013), Issue 3-4
Despite progress on extending social health protection coverage, most low‐income countries are still far from achieving universal health coverage and thus key objectives related to improvements in health, such as those aimed at by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), will almost certainly not be realized by 2015. Principally affected are the most vulnerable populations: the rural and urban poor and workers in the informal economy and their families. It is of particular concern that progress might not only remain limited but even be reversed if policies continue to fail to address the root causes of gaps and deficits in health coverage. This article provides evidence that these causes lie both within and beyond the health sector and are strongly related to poverty and other forms of vulnerability. It argues that sustainable progress towards universal health coverage can only be achieved in an adequate time frame when focusing simultaneously on i) extending health coverage and improving access to needed health care; ii) providing income security through income support to those in need; iii) addressing limitations, or the inability to participate, in income generation from work; and iv) implementing coherent policies within and across the social, economic and health sectors that set priorities on poverty alleviation. Such policies can best be implemented in the context of national social protection floors (SPF) that focus on access to at least essential health care and on providing at least basic income security over the life cycle to all in need. Implementing SPFs may result in breaking the mutual linkages between ill health, poverty and other vulnerabilities and achieving sustainable progress towards universal health coverage and other social protection objectives.
Topics:
Health
Extension of coverage
Social protection floor
Keywords:
health policy
supply of health care
gaps in coverage
social protection
recommendation
Regions:
International
Financing social protection floors: Considerations of fiscal space
Authors:
Elliott Harris
Issue:
Volume 66 (2013), Issue 3-4
The effectiveness of social protection in combating poverty and vulnerability, cushioning shocks, attenuating inequality, and supporting long‐term growth is well‐established, but effective social protection systems have long been seen as an unaffordable luxury in many developing and low‐income countries. The social protection floor concept aims at providing a guaranteed minimum of social protection at a reasonable cost, even in resource‐constrained circumstances, serving as a platform for the gradual implementation of a full social protection system. Introducing and maintaining or extending the floor requires the mobilization of fiscal space, both immediately and in the future. The article argues that efforts to generate fiscal space must carefully consider issues of predictability, as well as the impact of present funding choices on fiscal and debt sustainability, macroeconomic stability, inequality, poverty reduction and growth, and hence on future fiscal space. It examines from this perspective some of the implications of generating fiscal space through additional domestic resource mobilization, expenditure reallocation or efficiency gains, reduction of debt service, or external funding. The article also presents some evidence of a wide range of recent interventions that have been financed at reasonable cost on a sustainable basis in countries at different levels of income and development, using both own resources and external funds.
Topics:
Social protection floor
Keywords:
social protection
recommendation
social security financing
Regions:
International
The Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202): Completing the standards to close the coverage gap
Authors:
Ursula Kulke
Emmanuelle Saint‐Pierre Guilbault
Issue:
Volume 66 (2013), Issue 3-4
In June 2012, the 101st session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) adopted the Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection, 2012 (No. 202). This article explores the linkages between Recommendation No. 202 and the pre‐existing International Labour Organization (ILO) social security standards and its complementarity with these. In response to the questions as to whether the existing ILO social security standards have lost their relevance and whether the new Recommendation has been adopted with a view to replacing the existing ones, the article concludes that its adoption not only complements but also broadens and strengthens the existing international social security code. Together, Recommendation No. 202 and the ILO social security Conventions are viewed as providing a complete and adequate normative framework for the establishment and maintenance of comprehensive social security systems.
Topics:
Social protection floor
Keywords:
recommendation
gaps in coverage
legal aspect
social protection
ILO
Regions:
International
Civil society and the social protection floor
Authors:
Wouter van Ginneken
Issue:
Volume 66 (2013), Issue 3-4
Civil society wholeheartedly supports the concept of social protection floors and, in particular, the adoption of the ILO Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection, 2012 (No. 202). The implementation of social protection floors will be a great step forward towards the reduction of poverty and inequality as well as to the empowerment of people worldwide. The civil society movement is convinced that the rights‐based approach is the most effective way to design and implement empowering and sustainable social protection floors. With regard to the human rights‐based implementation of the social protection guarantees, it has four specific attention points: i) respect for the rights and dignity of people holding rights to social security; ii) full participation of civil society; iii) universal coverage at the local, national and international level; iv) and concern for vulnerable groups. Following the 101st International Labour Conference in 2012, 59 civil society organizations set up the “Coalition for a Social Protection Floor”, whose two main tasks are: to monitor and contribute to the universal implementation of social protection floors at local and national levels; and to promote the social protection floor concept in global policy‐making, such as in the discussions on the post‐2015 development agenda.
Topics:
Social protection floor
Keywords:
social protection
recommendation
interest group
public opinion
Regions:
International
The social protection floor and global social governance: Towards policy synergy and cooperation between international organizations
Authors:
Bob Deacon
Issue:
Volume 66 (2013), Issue 3-4
This article addresses the influence of the International Labour Organization (ILO) on other international organizations and global agencies which resulted in their endorsement of the Social Protection Floor (SFP) concept. By 2012 the concept had been endorsed by the United Nations in the shape of the UN Chief Executives Board's SPF‐Initiative, the World Bank in its new Social Protection and Labor Strategy and by the G20 at the Cannes Summit. Furthermore the IMF had agreed to work with the ILO to explore the options for creating fiscal space within countries to fund SPFs. Special Rapporteurs for the UN Human Rights Council had also in 2012 called for the setting up of a global fund for social protection to enable poorer countries to develop their floors. By 2012 a new coordinating authority, the Social Protection Inter‐Agency Cooperation Board (SPIAC‐B), had been ushered into existence to facilitate inter‐agency cooperation. This article describes and explains how these developments came about. It asks if the reality of increased global social governance cooperation in the field of social protection is as effective as it seems or whether there are new contradictions, overlapping and competing mandates and policy disagreements at the global level.
Topics:
Social protection floor
Keywords:
social protection
recommendation
governance
international organization
ILO
Regions:
International
The Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202): Can a six‐page document change the course of social history?
Authors:
Michael Cichon
Issue:
Volume 66 (2013), Issue 3-4
In June 2012, the global community made an important step to firmly establish social protection as part of national and global development strategies. The International Labour Conference unanimously adopted the Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection, 2012 (No. 202), providing concrete content to the human right to social security. This article puts the Recommendation into its historical standard setting and development policy context, reviews the emergence of the social protection floor concept, and analyses the contents of the new Recommendation and some of its political hotspots. It then explores whether the new instrument has the potential to change the social reality in the 185 ILO member States. It concludes that its adoption is an unprecedented demonstration of good will and far‐reaching global social policy consensus. However, in order to help create space for national policy change, the campaign to achieve at least a minimum of social security for all needs to continue and has to be kept on the international agenda. In closing, the article lists strategies that the global coalition behind this campaign needs to pursue for social security to remain or become an inalienable objective in national and international development strategies.
Topics:
Social protection floor
Keywords:
social security planning
social protection
recommendation
ILO
Regions:
International
The role of national social protection floors in extending social security to all
Authors:
Krzysztof Hagemejer
Roddy McKinnon
Issue:
Volume 66 (2013), Issue 3-4
In June 2011 the International Labour Conference (ILC) adopted a Resolution and Conclusions setting out the Organization's new social security strategy, which aims at supporting Members in building and maintaining comprehensive social security systems on the basis of a two‐dimensional approach: (1) (“horizontal” dimension) establishing – as a priority – nationally‐defined sets of basic social security guarantees to provide a floor of protection to all in need as soon as possible; (2) (“vertical” dimension) extending the scope and levels of social security coverage as guided by Convention No. 102 (1952) and other existing social security standards to as many people as possible and as soon as possible. In June 2012, the ILC completed this strategy with a new international labour standard: Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection, 2012 (No. 202). The Recommendation is deemed a breakthrough in global social policy, whereby the establishing of national social protection floors may close prevailing gaps in social security coverage and help countries to effectively address poverty and vulnerability. This special double issue offers analysis of the process that culminated in the Recommendation's adoption and addresses practical fiscal, legal, political and institutional challenges that must be addressed if the Recommendation's goals are to be successfully implemented.
Topics:
Social protection floor
Keywords:
recommendation
gaps in coverage
social security planning
social protection
ILO
ISSA
Regions:
International
Reinvigorating the social contract and strengthening social cohesion: Social protection responses to COVID-19
Authors:
Shahra Razavi
Christina Behrendt
Mira Bierbaum
Ian Orton
Lou Tessier
Issue:
Volume 73 (2020), Issue 3 (Special issue)
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of those who are inadequately covered by social protection in more and less developed countries alike, and has exacerbated the fragility of a social contract that was already under strain in many countries. A weak social contract in the context of an exceptional crisis poses a very real risk to social cohesion. Nevertheless, many States have reasserted themselves as the guarantor of rights by protecting public health and incomes. By sustaining these measures, economic recovery will be supported which will help minimize risks that may weaken social cohesion. However, this is a fast-moving, inherently unstable and protracted crisis. Social protection stands at a critical juncture. Decisive policy action will be required to strengthen social protection systems, including floors, as one of the cornerstones of a reinvigorated social contract.