Social security

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Social security is primarily a social insurance program providing social protection, or protection against socially recognized conditions, including poverty, old age, disability, unemployment and others. Social security may refer to:

• social insurance, where people receive benefits or services in recognition of contributions to an insurance scheme. These services typically include provision for retirement pensions, disability insurance, survivor benefits and unemployment insurance.
• income maintenance—mainly the distribution of cash in the event of interruption of employment, including retirement, disability and unemployment
• services provided by administrations responsible for social security. In different countries this may include medical care, aspects of social work and even industrial relations.
• More rarely, the term is also used to refer to basic security, a term roughly equivalent to access to basic necessities—things such as food, clothing, shelter, education and medical care.

Contents 1 Social insurance 2 Income maintenance 3 Social protection 4 See also 5 References 6 Literature 7 External links

Social insurance

Actuaries define social insurance as a government-sponsored insurance program that is defined by statute, serves a defined population, and is funded through premiums or taxes paid by or on behalf of participants. Participation is either compulsory or the program is subsidized heavily enough that most eligible individuals choose to participate.

In the U.S., programs that meet this definition include Social Security, Medicare, the PBGC program, the railroad retirement program and state-sponsored unemployment insurance programs.^[1]

Income maintenance

This policy is usually applied through various programs designed to provide a population with income at times when they are unable to care for themselves. Income maintenance is based in a combination of five main types of program:

• social insurance, considered above
• means-tested benefits. This is financial assistance provided for those who are unable to cover basic needs, such as food, clothing and housing, due to poverty or lack of income because of unemployment, sickness, disability, or caring for children. While assistance is often in the form of financial payments, those eligible for social welfare can usually access health and educational services free of charge. The amount of support is enough to cover basic needs and eligibility is often subject to a comprehensive and complex assessment of an applicant's social and financial situation. See also, Income Support.
• non-contributory benefits. Several countries have special schemes, administered with no requirement for contributions and no means test, for people in certain categories of need - for example, veterans of armed forces, people with disabilities and very old people.
• discretionary benefits. Some schemes are based on the discretion of an official, such as a social worker.
• universal or categorical benefits, also known as demogrants. These are non-contributory benefits given for whole sections of the population without a test of means or need, such as family allowances or the public pension in New Zealand (known as New Zealand Superannuation). See also, Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend.

Social protection

Social protection refers to a set of benefits available (or not available) from the state, market, civil society and households, or through a combination of these agencies, to the individual/households to reduce multi-dimensional deprivation. This multi-dimensional deprivation could be affecting less active poor persons (e.g. the elderly, disabled) and active poor persons (e.g. unemployed). This broad framework makes this concept more acceptable in developing countries than the concept of social security. Social security is more applicable in the conditions, where large numbers of citizens depend on the formal economy for their livelihood. Through a defined contribution, this social security may be managed. But, in the context of wide spread informal economy, formal social security arrangements are almost absent for the vast majority of the working population. Besides, in developing countries, the state's capacity to reach the vast majority of the poor people may be limited because of its limited resources. In such a context, multiple agencies that could provide for social protection is important for policy consideration. The framework of social protection is thus capable of holding the state responsible to provide for the poorest sections by regulating non-state agencies.

Collaborative research from the Institute of Development Studies debating Social Protection from a global perspective, suggests that advocates for social protection fall into two broad categories: 'instrumentalists' and 'activists'. 'Instrumentalists' argue that extreme poverty, inequality and vulnerability, is dysfunctional in the achievement of development targets (e.g. the MDGs). In this view social protection is about putting in place risk management mechanisms that will compensate for incomplete or missing insurance (and other) markets, until a time that private insurance can play a more prominent role in that society. 'Activist' arguments view the persistence of extreme poverty, inequality and vulnerability, as symptoms of social injustice and structural inequality and see social protection as a right of citizenship. Targeted welfare is a necessary step between humanitarianism and the ideal of a 'guaranteed social minimum' where entitlement extends beyond cash or food transfers and is based on citizenship, not philanthropy.^[2]

See also

• Civil defense
• Department for Work and Pensions
• Employees' Provident Fund Organisation of India
• Generational accounting
• Health care system
• Human rights
• Human security
• Intergenerationality
• International Social Security Association
• Franco Modigliani
• National Health Service
• Prevention
• Publicly-funded health care
• National health insurance
• Social policy
• Social safety net
• Social Security Administration
• Social Security debate (United States)
• Social Security Disability Insurance
• Social Security number
• Social Security Trust Fund
• Social Security (Australia)
• Social Security in France
• Social Security (United States)
• Social welfare provision
• South African Social Security Agency
• The Four Pillars
• Welfare Rights
• Welfare state

References

Literature

Very basic

• ‘Reforming European Pension Systems’ (Arun Muralidhar and Serge Allegreza (Eds.)), Amsterdam, NL and West Lafayette, Indiana, USA: Dutch University Press, Rozenberg Publishers and Purdue University Press

Further reading

• Modigliani, Franco. Rethinking pension reform / Franco Modigliani, Arun Muralidhar. Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004.
• Muralidhar, Arun S. Innovations in pension fund management / Arun S. Muralidhar. Stanford, Calif.; [Great Britain] : Stanford Economics + Finance, c2001.
• "The Three Pillars of Wisdom? A Reader on Globalization, World Bank Pension Models and Welfare Society" (Arno Tausch, Editor). Nova Science Hauppauge, New York, 2003
• Amazon.com, "When the Public Works: Generating Employment and Social Protection in Ethiopia" Peter Middlebrook , Lambert Academic Publishing. 2009. ISBN-13: 978-3838306728

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Social security

• Social security Web portal of the International Social Security Association
• Social Protection & Labor Program of the World Bank
• Social Protection Program of the World Bank Institute
• Social Protection research from the Overseas Development Institute
• Online guide to basic social protection concepts and issues
• Further resources on social protection (particularly in reference to developing countries) are available on the Governance and Social Development Resource Centre's topic guide on social protection
• Arno Tausch (2005) ‚World Bank Pension reforms and development patterns in the world system and in the “Wider Europe”. A 109 country investigation based on 33 indicators of economic growth, and human, social and ecological well-being, and a European regional case study’. A slightly re-worked version of a paper, originally presented to the Conference on “Reforming European pension systems. In memory of Professor Franco Modigliani. 24 and 25 September 2004”, Castle of Schengen, Luxembourg Institute for European and International Studies
• OECD - Social Expenditure database (SOCX) Website

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