The recent evolution of social security coverage in Brazil

Abstract   This article describes and assesses indicators of social security coverage in Brazil over the period 1992 to 2006 for employed workers and the elderly. While the coverage of retired workers has shown some degree of stability over the past years, that of employed workers changed significantly over the period, showing clear signs of deterioration between 1992 and 2002, and of recovery since then. Fewer self-employed persons in agriculture in rural areas (Special Insured Persons, workers with specific social security schemes) accounts for most of the deterioration. The economic recovery and an increase in new registered jobs accounts for most of the improvement in coverage between 2003 and 2006. Administrative and institutional factors also played a relevant role, especially in promoting the inclusion of domestic and self-employed workers as social security contributors.     

Health care as a social security benefit: Institutional approaches to extending coverage

Reaching universal health‐care coverage requires an appropriate mix of compulsory contributory social insurance schemes, with mechanisms to include the informal‐economy population, and tax‐based social assistance for those whose incomes preclude their own contributions. This article urges a reversal of the trend that favours the separate development of social health insurance by separate health authorities and makes the case for the extension of health‐care coverage using existing formal‐sector social security schemes, not least because they have the necessary political backing and institutional structures. The article reviews reasons for the slow pace of coverage extension to date, and stresses the added value of incorporating health care as a social security benefit while also acknowledging the importance of retaining linkages between statutory and well‐regulated community‐based or micro health‐insurance schemes.     

Voluntary affiliation to Peru's individual accounts pension system

One important aspect in the design of social protection is coverage. In Peru, as in most Latin American countries, social security coverage is mandatory only for workers in the formal sector. This article investigates the determinants of voluntary affiliation to Peru's individual accounts pension system. It is found that married males with more than high-school level education living in high income households and with other family members already affiliated to the individual accounts pension system have a higher likelihood of voluntary affiliation. Although the results suggest that family-based safety nets might be substitutes for voluntary participation in the individual accounts pension system, nonetheless, extending pension coverage and addressing poverty remain as challenges for government involvement.     

Extending social security coverage: Concepts, global trends and policy issues

This article reviews the experience of some key low-, middle- and high-income countries that have successfully extended social security coverage or are in the process of doing so. It shows that a strong and competent State is a first requirement for the extension of social security. It also examines a variety of coverage indicators that can help national and international policymakers to focus their efforts on the extension of social security. Finally, it documents the growing use of tax-financed social pensions, and discusses some policy issues with regard to the link between tax-financed and contributory social security schemes.     

基本养老保险覆盖面扩展决定因素实证研究

扩大基本养老保险覆盖面是我国社会保障制度改革的优先目标之一。本文通过对19982003年分省数据的实证分析,发现各省之间的基本养老保险覆盖面的差异,主要是由它们的经济发展水平和市场化程度这两个宏观经济因素与基本养老金给付标准和财政对社会保障补助支出这两个政策因素共同决定的。基于这些发现,考虑到我国经济持续发展和市场化改革深化的趋势,我们对我国社会保障事业的发展持谨慎乐观的态度,并认为在目前,“低水平、高覆盖”仍然是一个符合国情、必须坚持的合理政策选择,地方政府应当在财力许可的范围内,增加对社会保障事业的财政投入。     

试论慈善事业在社会保障体系中的作用

慈善事业是社会保障体系的重要组成部分,发挥着重要作用。微观来看,弥补基本社会保障覆盖面窄的缺陷;整体上提高社会保障体系的效率;塑造着一种"人人为我,我为人人"的慈善文化。宏观来看,有助于提高整个社会保障体系的完整性、协调性与层次性。     

The "X component" in Shanghai's social security reforms

In 2003, the Shanghai Bureau of Labour and Social Security launched the zhenbao (town insurance) programme, now widely known as 25 plus X. This scheme is regarded as an important experiment in social security reform and has been lauded for extending social security to areas where previously only segments of the population had mandatory coverage. Using data from 103,000 individuals enrolled in 25 plus X, we examine the extent to which the scheme represents an extension in social security coverage. Our analysis suggests that while it does represent an extension of benefits for some, for many it represents a considerable dilution in benefits.     

Distributional Impacts of Pension Policy in Argentina: Winners and Losers within and Across Generations

The paper deals with the life‐cycle intra‐ and intergenerational income transfers operated by the pension system in Argentina by estimating the internal rates of return obtained by different generations and types of workers from their participation in the system. The empirical analysis confirms that earlier generations of workers benefited from higher social security returns than later generations, which retired under a matured system with large deficits. The worst‐affected cohorts were those born after 1920, particularly suffering from a social security crisis and falling real wages. For future generations retiring fully under the new mixed pension system, returns will more closely depend on financial market performance and the evolution of administration costs. Intragenerational transfers were also observed for all cohorts under study, as a result of the original system design as well as adjustments adopted during the implementation process. The real distributional impact of progressive benefit formulas could, however, be offset by state transfers to cover pension deficits and forward tax shifting in a context of unequal pension coverage.     

Extending pension coverage in Cambodia: The governance and investment challenges of the Social Security Investment Fund

Rapid economic growth, declining fertility and changes in family structures have encouraged the Kingdom of Cambodia to reform its old-age pension system. The Government of Cambodia reached an important milestone in 2019, when the Law on Social Security was promulgated. The Law includes provisions for a compulsory defined benefit pension scheme, establishing a sound framework for extending compulsory pension coverage beyond the public sector to formal private-sector workers. As a future step, the compulsory pension scheme should be extended to informal workers. To accompany the reform, the investment policy for the pension scheme’s reserve funds, including the supervisory regime and investment strategy, will be essential for the modernization of the Cambodian social security system. In this regard, Cambodia has successfully sought policy advice. However, the country should continue to seek further advice, and to act on this. Otherwise, the necessary and increasingly pressing policy ambitions of Cambodia to develop an adequate and sustainable social protection system may not be fully realized.     

Extension of social insurance coverage to informal economy workers in China: An administrative and institutional perspective

This article reviews administrative issues in the context of decentralized social protection in China. In particular, what are the main obstacles to expanding social insurance coverage for workers in the informal economy? Over the last two decades, China has achieved remarkable progress toward universal social protection when this target was set as a national policy priority. However, the social insurance enrolment of informal economy workers still lags significantly behind. This article reviews the application of the International Labour Organization’s definition of informality in the Chinese context and overviews existing pension and health insurances in China. This article discusses the impact of China’s inter‐governmental fiscal relations and decentralized social protection in the multilevel government system. The article highlights that under a system of decentralized managed social insurance many informal economy workers choose to opt out of the system because of low benefits and high compliance costs. This result in deficits in social insurance coverage amongst informal economy workers.     

Social security reforms in Kenya: Towards a workerist or a citizenship‐based system?

With social security provisions in Kenya remaining under‐reported in the more recent literature, this overview covers recent reforms in key areas of the country's social security system. In the health sector and in old‐age pension provision social security is still mainly workerist (biased toward those in formal employment), and attempts to expand coverage have had limited effect only – cash transfer programmes, for instance, have been expanded but in practice they do not universally cover the entitled categories. Thus, although the Kenyan social security system now has a considerable pro‐poor social assistance component it remains biased toward those in formal employment, to the benefit of the highest income quintile.     

Beyond legal coverage: Assessing the performance of social health protection

A frequently used indicator to measure social health protection performance is the extent of population coverage as stipulated in national legislation. However, this indicator does not provide meaningful information on performance in terms of effective access to benefits that are available, affordable and of acceptable quality, not least for the poor and workers in informal economies. This article proposes a new approach to measuring performance by applying a set of relevant indicators in an analytical framework for assessing the performance of social health protection. The approach allows policy‐makers to conclude from comparisons among groups of countries facing similar challenges. Preliminary results include comprehensive information on deficits that need to be addressed when striving for effective universal coverage. With further refinement, the suggested approach could become a standard assessment tool for measuring performance.     

Expanding social health protection in Cambodia: An assessment of the current coverage potential and gaps,and social equity considerations

The Royal Government of Cambodia recently launched its National Social Protection Policy framework to strengthen and expand social security and assistance. To inform social health protection policy, we examine socio-economic survey data and administrative coverage data to assess the coverage potential of existing coverage mechanisms and current gaps; and compare equitable contribution rates. Over 53 per cent of the population currently has no social health protection coverage mechanism, and about 16 per cent of the population who do have access to a mechanism are not yet enrolled. Current expansion efforts focus on the formal employee scheme, primarily benefiting individuals from higher income households. In addition, recent coverage expansion to some informal workers leaves significant gaps, particularly among the informal sector. We find out-of-pocket health care expenditure to be an excessive share of income among lower wealth quintile individuals and conclude they are financially vulnerable. Finally, we illustrate that an equitable approach to individual, monthly health care contributions among the lower three quintiles has a severely limited potential for revenue generation, and collection costs could exceed the amount collected. Therefore, we recommend that vulnerable groups should be exempted from contribution payments as social health protection is expanded.     

Poverty alleviation,coverage and fiscal sustainability: Investigating the effect of a new social pension in Hong Kong

This article synthesises the characteristics of social pensions across Asia and evaluates the effect of a new social pension in the Hong Kong SAR, the Old Age Living Allowance (OALA), on poverty alleviation, coverage rates and fiscal sustainability. We found that the effectiveness of the OALA in reducing old‐age poverty was limited, although it has led to an increase of retirement pension coverage by 6%. The OALA is projected to face substantial cost increases in the medium and longer term. Increasing the level of OALA benefits would be a direct means to enhance its poverty alleviation effect but may potentially be hampered by concerns about the fiscal sustainability of such changes. More obfuscated alternatives for Hong Kong policy makers to affect old‐age poverty alleviation include adjusting the indexing rules of benefit level payments and the eligibility criteria to reduce the stigma attached to the current policy choices.     

Extending health care coverage: Potential linkages between statutory social security and community-based social protection

Abstract   The extension of social health protection in developing countries is widely recognized as a priority. Various financing and institutional methods can be used in pursuing this objective, but none of them can achieve universal coverage in the short term. Based on an analysis of the respective strengths and weaknesses of social health insurance and community-based health care schemes, this article demonstrates the high potential of coverage extension strategies that use a pluralistic institutional approach to establish linkages and exploit complementarities optimally. A typology of potential linkages among different methods is presented and their value added illustrated using country examples.     

Changing the development policy paradigm: Investing in Social security floor for all

The Paper briefly reviews social security coverage that the world has achieved and summarizes economic and social benefits of a national social security system. It then goes on to argue that social security systems are a necessary part of the institutional framework of any effective market economy, creating—among other things—societal cohesion that is needed for long-term economic development. It makes the case that the introduction of basic social protection in developing countries is both a desirable and an affordable investment in their social and economic development. It estimates the global minimum investment cost to provide basic social security and finally suggests international instruments to introduce a global social security floor.     

Semi‐conditional cash transfers in the form of family allowances for children and adolescents in the informal economy in Argentina

In 2009, Argentina introduced a new transfer programme for children and adolescents younger than age 18 (Universal Child Allowance) that extended coverage under the contributory programme for family allowances to include families in the informal economy and families of unemployed persons. This article describes this innovative programme, compares it with similar programmes in Latin America and analyses its impact on coverage and its possible effects on the welfare of the population. The results indicate that the extension of access to this type of benefit has reduced considerably the coverage gap for the poor and indigent and supports efforts to consolidate the operations of different and poorly coordinated transfer programmes.     

The coverage of social protection in the Global South

About 73% of the global population is not, or is only partly, covered by social protection. Particularly across low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), social protection coverage is highly heterogeneous. What explains the large differences in the inclusiveness of social protection across LMICs? By analysing 100 LMICs using retirement schemes as an example, this study shows that non‐contributory schemes in LMICs are, by far, more inclusive than contributory ones. Surprisingly, democratic institutions characterised by low levels of political corruption only promote the inclusiveness of non‐contributory social protection while reducing the coverage of contributory schemes.     

The nature of local news media issue coverage of U.S. House members

In this paper, I examine local newspaper issue coverage of House members after the campaign season has ended. While research on news coverage of campaign issues has been thorough, considerably less attention has been placed on issue coverage outside of campaigns. This is particularly the case for the local news media. Using an extensive content analysis of House member local newspaper coverage over a one-year period, I examine the nature of local and national issue coverage. I find that local issues are covered slightly more than national issues in reporting on House members. Further, members’ strategic use of press releases and the presence of newspapers’ Washington bureaus help explain whether a story will cover a local or national political issue.     

Giants old and new: Promoting social security and economic growth in the Asia and Pacific Region

Abstract   While the Asia and Pacific region is characterised by vast diversity, the region as a whole warrants attention. There have been great achievements in recent years in promoting economic growth, building social security and reducing poverty, but giant challenges remain, nine of which are identified. Five resemble problems prevalent in Europe 60 years ago: want; squalor; underemployment; poor education; and bad health. The four others, inequitable growth, discrimination, corruption, and ageing populations lessen the effectiveness of policies targeted on the other five. A fourfold responsive strategy is sketched that includes mechanisms to extend formal sector employment, expand coverage of social security within the formal sector and to the informal sector, and to establish and sustain social safety nets for those otherwise excluded from social protection.