The difficulties of extending social security in Tunisia's agricultural sector

The development of social security in the agricultural sector in Tunisia faces obstacles due to the particular social and economic conditions that apply. The desire of the public authorities to extend social protection to the rural population as a whole runs up against both technical and financial problems. The exact number of people employed in the agricultural sector is not known and it is difficult to define precisely the range of persons to be protected. The changes that have been made in the legal framework in order to adapt social security to the composition and the working conditions of the agricultural population have not achieved their objective. The lack of a coherent system is reflected in particular in the variety of legal provisions and schemes which may be applicable to employees engaged in the same work or working in the same firm. The precarious nature of agricultural employment, the low incomes and thus the low contributory capacity of the workers, the level of benefits offered — in the agricultural schemes sometimes very much below those in the general scheme — all these make social security appear impossible to achieve or not worth while. The resistance encountered by the social security institution may also be due in part to the failure of the Social Security Fund to make people sufficiently aware of the position in the face of some of the traditional structures of solidarity.