Social protection systems and the future of work: Ensuring social security for digital platform workers

Digitalization is transforming societies and economies worldwide at an unprecedented scale and pace. In the wake of automation and digitalization, new forms of employment have been emerging in various occupations and sectors, such as the digital platform economy. The emergence of new forms of employment, such as work on digital platforms, requires that existing social protection systems adapt to the specific situation and needs of such workers, as to realize the human right to social security for all. Current social protection coverage for workers on digital crowdwork platforms reveals significant gaps in social security coverage. Where such coverage exists, it is often provided through the workers’ previous or additional jobs, or indirectly through their spouses or other family members. This raises questions about digital platforms free riding on the traditional economy with regard to the financing of social security. How can social protection systems adapt to changing forms of work to ensure full and effective coverage for workers in all forms of employment, including those in “new” forms of employment? How can workers in all types of employment, including those on digital platforms, be protected in an adequate and comprehensive way, combining contributory and non‐contributory mechanisms and based on equitable and sustainable financing mechanisms, so as to ensure adequate social protection to all?     

The potential impact of introducing a social security system in the State of Palestine: A computable general equilibrium approach

This article assesses the potential impact for the State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) of enforcing the enactment of the currently suspended Social Security Law (No. 19 of 2016). Using a computable general equilibrium model, we simulate different scenarios associated with the enactment of the social security system on key macroeconomic variables, such as GDP, private consumption, government spending, investment and employment, for the period 2020–2030. We evaluate the influence on the economy of introducing a social security system for private-sector workers, as set out in the 2016 law, and compare the simulation results of each scenario to the baseline. In each scenario, we consider different options concerning severance payment duration and different options for the investment strategy of social security contributions. However, for employees in Gaza, the article does not consider severance payments due to economic difficulties and the Israeli closure policy.     

北京市家政工研究

家政工是北京市非正规就业的重要组成部分,90%以上均为女性。这一职业存在法律真空、就业不稳定、情感劳动、性骚扰等多重困境。建议加快制定相关法规,由政府采取统一的扶持政策,深化北京市服务领域改革,优化服务业发展环境。     

Deciphering Deservedness: Canadian Employment Insurance Reforms in Historical Perspective

In 2012, the Government of Canada introduced reforms to Employment Insurance (EI), Canada's primary income security programme for the unemployed. The changes entailed new requirements for particular types of claimants to apply for and accept jobs of increasingly less pay, and codified the efforts claimants must demonstrate in job searches to maintain benefits. These measures leave many claimants little choice but to accept precarious employment as a means of financial survival. The central claim of the article is that recent EI reforms are not adequately understood as an instance of neo‐liberal activation. Instead, they must be situated in a long history of attempts to categorize the unemployed as deserving or undeserving of income security on the basis of their work history and perceptions of their willingness to work. Through a survey of different periods of unemployment policy in Canada, we demonstrate continuity in authorities' efforts to differentiate the unemployed into categories of worthy and unworthy. Within this history, however, the 2012 reforms are unprecedented in the extent to which they reorient the EI programme to service low wage labour markets. By way of conclusion, we suggest that the current EI programme exacerbates insecurities for the growing segment of workers in precarious employment.     

Predictors of Child Welfare Worker Retention and Performance

Abstract

Using administrative records, this paper tracks for up to four years using Cox survival methods the retention of 839 public child welfare workers who began child welfare work in 1999. It also examines, using ordinal logistic regression, supervisory performance evaluations of 382 of these workers. Participation in a IV-E-funded social work educational program predicted better retention. In particular, risk of termination decreased by 52% during the mandated contractual employment period in which the educational stipend was “worked off”. Other predictors of longer retention included prior non-child welfare employment at the public agency and working in the state office setting. Temporary job classification predicted higher risk of termination. With temporary classifications excluded, female gender predicted better retention. In exploratory Cox frailty regressions, neither county of employment nor supervisor explained significant variance in retention. Involvement with the IV-E funded social work program was not associated significantly with supervisory ratings. Regression analyses revealed an association between an ethnic group's representation in the population of child welfare workers and supervisory evaluation; the greater that representation, the higher the overall evaluation for the group.     

Working late: policy relevance for older workers in the United States

The United States has seen a sizable increase in older worker labour force participation, although how much of this is due to public policy is uncertain. In fact, outside of academic and policy research circles, there has been relatively little attention paid to older workers and the challenges of an aging workforce in that country. Public policymakers have not demonstrated the same interest in expanding employment opportunities for older workers that they have shown for other groups, or that has been seen in other countries. Still, a number of significant pieces of legislation have been enacted over the past several decades that should be making continued employment at later ages easier, more attractive, or more essential financially. This paper examines those policies. However, because of confounding and conflicting influences from elsewhere, public policy initiatives focusing on older worker employment do not appear to be major contributors to rising labour force participation rates at older ages.     

The regulatory challenge of occupational safety and health in the online platform economy

The online platform economy raises a range of intricate legal questions connected to labour law and social security protection. In particular, the atypical forms of labour relationships used by many online platforms (e.g. multilateral, hyper‐temporary, off‐site, autonomous), often contractually defined as independent contracting, have challenged the application of labour and occupational health and safety law in many countries across the world, as the application of these norms tends to be dependent on the existence of an “employment relationship”. These developments are compounding the general increase in atypical employment, especially as a result of the 2007–08 financial and economic crisis. It has mostly fallen to courts to resolve the disputes between online platforms and their online platform workers, but some European Union (EU) Member States (such as France) have taken specific legal measures in response to these difficulties. Also, the EU‐level as such is becoming increasingly involved, with the Court of Justice’s ruling in the case of Uber providing some guidance on the “employment question”, and a pending legislative initiative on a Directive for Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions which may provide minimum labour protection for online platform workers in the EU. This article analyzes the problem of labour law in the online platform economy and surveys the various responses by courts and policy‐makers across the EU, which may furthermore set the tone for developments outside the EU in this area.     

Getting low educated and older people into work: The role of fiscal policy

Raising employment, in particular employment among older individuals and low educated individuals, stands high on the agenda of policy makers in many OECD countries. Increased sensitivity in recent years to rising inequality has made the challenge only larger. In this paper we evaluate alternative fiscal policy scenarios to face this challenge. We construct and use an overlapping generations model for an open economy where individuals differ not only by age, but also by innate ability and human capital. The model allows us to study effects on aggregate employment, per capita income and welfare, as well as effects for specific age and ability groups. We show that well-considered fiscal policy changes can significantly improve macroeconomic productive efficiency, without increasing intergenerational or intragenerational welfare inequality. Our results strongly prefer a reduction in the labor tax rate on older workers and on all low-wage earners, financed by an overall reduction in non-employment benefits. An alternative financing option is to raise the consumption tax rate. These results are to be seen as long-run effects for economies at potential output.     

Domestic violence,housing and employment: Workers' perspectives on employment assistance in supported accommodation

In response to contemporary understanding about the association between financial security and women's ability to escape domestic violence and homelessness, this paper reports on a small scale pilot study conducted with workers from generalist homelessness services and domestic violence‐supported accommodation services in South Australia on responding to women's requests for assistance to seek employment. Workers from both accommodation service types advised that approximately one third of women at their services asked for employment‐related assistance at the point of service intake or soon after. Although relatively few women received employment support following their requests, assistance was four times more likely at the generalist homelessness services than the domestic violence services. Agency priorities, philosophies and workers' assessments of women's capacity to engage in employment were cited as reasons for not responding to women's employment requests. Women who secured employment prior to service exit, whether helped to do so or not, were perceived as more confident with the prospect of supporting their families independently following exit and more able to secure suitable housing when compared to other women. Follow‐up and outreach visits indicated that women who worked had a stronger sense of financial security, housing stability and social connectedness, but that maintaining employment following service exit was difficult.     

Redefining Welfare: Australian Social Policy and Practice

The present paper outlines and analyzes Australia's welfare reform policies as they have been implemented over the past decade. While there have been numerous social policy initiatives over this period, welfare reform provides an interesting site for analysis and review. This suite of policies and programs is of particular importance from several standpoints. First, its target groups – those needing income security assistance, including the unemployed, people with disabilities, and single parents – are historically and traditionally of concern to social work and social welfare. Second, welfare reform policies have had significant impact on social welfare agencies, and the social workers and welfare workers employed in them. Finally, welfare reform has had a wider impact on inequality in Australia and our attitudes to those in need. This paper first provides a brief overview of the context of Australian social policy and welfare, its origins and current situation. It then outlines the key operational elements of welfare reform and how it has been implemented. The third section of the paper offers a critical analysis of these policies and programs and finally poses some questions and issues requiring further discussion and research.     

Do you feel like an insider? Job security and preferences for Flexibilization across Europe

The paper analyses the determinants of public opinion on flexibilisation of work contracts. While the literature on new labour market divides has rapidly expanded, few contributions directly look at employees’ demands for labour market regulation. By using a multi-level data set for 25 European countries, we find that the subjectively assessed job security is an important and valuable predictor of preferences for flexibilisation. In particular, those with very low and very high levels of perceived job security prefer flexibilisation compared to those with medium levels. We also show that the effect is stronger in countries with stricter employment protection legislation. The findings contribute to the literature on new divides of labour market politics in several ways. First, our empirical operationalization is related directly to the core of insider-outsider theory, the protection of work contracts. Second, subjective assessment of employment security yields important complementary insights into a debate usually focusing on objective measures. Third, we find that the (subjective) divide is context dependent; it is much more visible in countries where employment protection regulation is strong.     

Room to move? Professional discretion at the frontline of welfare‐to‐work

Outcomes of social policies have always been mediated by the discretionary agency of front‐line staff, processes which nevertheless have received insufficient attention in policy evaluation and in the social policy literature more broadly. This article takes the case example of the policy reforms associated with the Australian government's welfare‐to‐work agenda. Drawing on two discreet research projects undertaken at different points in the policy trajectory, the practices of social workers in Centrelink – the Commonwealth government's primary service delivery agency involved in welfare‐to‐work – is examined. Centrelink social workers have been and remain one of the core groups of specialist staff since the Department's inception in the late 1940s, working to improve the well being of people in receipt of income security. Their experiences of the recent past and their expectations of the future of their professional practice as welfare reform becomes more entrenched are canvassed. In summary, the discretionary capacity of the Centrelink social workers to moderate or shape the impact of policy on income security recipients is steadily eroding as this group of professionals is increasingly captured by the emerging practices of workfare.     

农民工医疗保障的困境与出路——基于北京市海淀区三个工地的实地考察

本文旨在从主体性的视角考察农民工医疗保障的困境和出路。为此,笔者从底层建筑类农民工的实际情况出发,通过对农民工、留守家人和政策管理者三类群体的访谈,不仅指出了建筑类农民工医疗保障存在的三大问题,还从政策设计和执行的角度分析了上述问题发生的制度根源,并在此基础上提出了解决农民工医疗保障问题的政策建议。要想解决建筑类农民工医疗保障问题,必须完善医疗保障政策,既要健全农民工医疗保障体系,又要强化政策落实。     

Between Tradition and Transition: Workers With Family Responsibilities

This paper briefly summarizes the demographic and social changes in Australian families that have focused attention on the interconnections between work and family life. The impacts that employment has on family functioning and the pressures of family life that impinge on the work environment will be discussed. The main theme of the paper explores the apparent confusion and lack of consensus on the part of government and the community at large toward the appropriate roles of men and women in the family and the boundaries that should exist between work and family life. Finally, policy implications of the ambivalence about work and family roles as reflected in government and corporate responses to workers with family responsibilities is addressed.     

Sick but at work: Graded sick leave in a comparative perspective

Measures to activate sick‐listed workers and to combine work with sickness benefits are a growing but little‐studied policy field. This article investigates graded sick leave benefits in Sweden, Finland and Germany. The analysis reveals some commonalities between countries, as well as substantial differences in terms of institutional background, benefit design and governance. The schemes range from models in which grading has become an integral component of the regular sickness certification process, to models in which the graded‐work option is targeted at a much smaller category of workers and has a stronger therapeutic character. The variation in design and governance of the models is reflected in large differences in terms of their diffusion. All schemes face a common set of obstacles and challenges. They relate in particular to the distribution of stakeholders' roles and responsibilities, the involvement of employers and the assessment of residual work ability.     

The Time‐related Underemployment of Lone Parents during Welfare Reform,Recession and Austerity: A Challenge to In‐work Conditionality?

Reforms to UK social security benefits introduced between 2008 and 2012 that increased lone parent obligations to enter employment coincided with economic crisis and government austerity. Increases in underemployment in the broader population during this period both in terms of unemployment and time‐related underemployment raise questions regarding the extent to which lone parents not only managed to enter paid work but obtain a sufficient number of employment hours. Activation policies have increased labour market exposure at a time of greater underemployment. At the same time, high levels of economic hardship, in the context of stagnant real wage growth and benefit cuts linked to broader austerity policy, could place additional pressures on lone parent time‐related underemployment where a desire for greater employment hours to improve household income is not met by availability. We present findings showing disproportionately high growth in time‐related underemployment among lone mothers with, at peak, around one in five employed lone mothers with a youngest dependent child aged over five experiencing such underemployment. The implications to in‐work conditionality policies and the roll out of the UK's new working age benefit Universal Credit are highlighted.     

The gender impact of National Pension reforms in the Republic of Korea

This article examines the gender impact of National Pension reforms in the Republic of Korea. In 2007, the Korean government introduced an income-tested basic old-age pension scheme paying flat-rate benefits. It also introduced credited pension coverage periods for child rearing and changed entitlement conditions for divorcees and widows and widowers. This paper examines the impact of these policy changes for individuals with shorter working lives and lower wages, for survivors and for the traditional social protection role played by the family in Korea. Findings indicate that the reforms have some positive features. However, the reforms still offer better value for those with higher earnings and an uninterrupted employment history, both of which are more characteristic of male workers. Moreover, the important income security role played by the family is still strongly embedded in the provisions and the protection available to survivors remains weak.     

Unemployment and mental health among white‐collar workers – a question of work involvement and financial situation?

We examine whether it is a psychosocial or an economic need for employment that affects mental health among the unemployed. The relevance of both aspects are examined, concentrating on two measures of each dimension. Two perspectives of work involvement – the degree of connection to working life and the perceived employment commitment – and two perspectives on financial situation – economic security and perceived economic concern – have been analysed, using empirical data collected by means of a cross-sectional survey of 1297 unemployed white-collar workers from the public sector in Sweden. The degree of connection to working life was not significantly linked to the mental health of the unemployed, although there was a strong link between the perceived employment commitment and mental health among this group. The stronger the perceived employment commitment, the poorer the state of the person's mental health. Perceived economic concern was also tightly linked to mental health: the greater the economic concern, the poorer the mental health. Economic security also played – at least, partly – a moderate but significant role. The results provide strong support for the existence of both a psychosocial need and an economic need for employment. The analysis demonstrates that it is the perceived assessed measures of work involvement and financial situation that are linked to mental health.     

Social security for the twenty-first century

Social security schemes are accused of undermining both competitiveness and employment, because of the burden of contributions, and weakening economic vitality through their disincentive effects on work and levels of saving. Yet at the same time they are called upon to meet new social needs arising from family instability and changes in the labour market – growing unemployment and reduced job security, widening pay differentials and a decline in the position of self-employed workers – trends which coincide with the globalization of markets. This article postulates the need for improved redistribution (without making changes in social security coverage) in order to achieve a balance between occupational and national solidarity which favours the latter, since stable and full-time employment for all can no longer be assured.     

SPECIAL ISSUE： MIGRANT WORKERS IN THE COURSE OF URBANIZATION Migrant workers in China： a general survey

本文通过对相关实证研究文献的疏理,从农民工总量规模、结构分布、对输出地贡献和对输入地影响四个方面对中国农民工的总体性状况进行了描述与分析。在总量规模的分析中,我们需要注意各调查的统计口径,值得注意的是,根据最新发布的农普调查数据,农村外出从业劳动力已达1．3亿,此处数据不含随外出从业劳动力外出的非劳动力人口。外出务工经商者以初中文化的青壮年为主,行业分布以制造业、建筑业和服务业为主,长距离迁移占很高比例。农民工跨区域转移这种就业结构变动对我国经济增长贡献巨大,已有研究估计对GDP增量贡献在20％左右。从输出地来看,总的影响是积极的,特别是收入状况的改善,但也留下了数量庞大的留守族。