International Social Security Review最新文献

A wide and established body of research evidence has consistently shown how the effective provision of social protection benefits and the promotion of gender equality are among the key tools for addressing shocks, vulnerability and poverty. It is largely to this end that these ideals implicitly feature throughout the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and explicitly in two Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The first is SDG 1 on poverty reduction, target 1.3 of which calls for the implementation of nationally appropriate social protection systems, measures and floors for all. The second is SDG 5, which aims to achieve gender equality and empowerment for all women and girls. Despite this, women across the world continue to receive contributory social security benefits that are notably lower than those of men. There is, therefore, a need for a critical and deeper understanding of policy, legislative and programmatic factors that underlie gender gaps in social protection provision. To contribute to knowledge in this regard, and while not aiming to address the intractable challenge of labour market formalization, this article draws on qualitative data from case studies conducted in 2022 among informal economy and other traditionally unprotected workers in three countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Mozambique, United Republic of Tanzania, and Togo), the region with the highest proportion of informal workers. The aim was to explore the extent to which these workers, who are predominantly women, have access to the various elements of maternity protection. The results showed the extent to which explicit legislative and policy frameworks as well as knowledge and service context often limit women’s access to maternity protection. The article draws on the key findings to provide strategic recommendations for designing and effectively implementing more gender-responsive social protection benefits in developing economy contexts.

Reflecting their weaker labour force attachment and lower earnings, women consistently report feeling greater economic insecurity than men across the Member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Similar gender gaps emerge in perceptions of social protection systems: women are far less confident than men in their ability to access benefits and services and receive adequate income support when they need it, both in working age and old age. Results from the cross-national OECD Risks that Matter (RTM) Survey illustrate that, on average, across countries, about half of women feel that they could not easily receive public benefits if they needed them, compared to 43 per cent of men. This perceived inaccessibility likely reflects gender gaps in perceived “hassle costs” associated with social programme applications and the intra-household allocations of administrative burden, but it also likely reflects women’s lower social security contributions. This article illuminates gender gaps in the design of social programmes and suggests ways by which governments can better mainstream gender when improving the accessibility and adequacy of social protection.

Street-level bureaucrats are the “human face” of social protection delivery systems around the world. To date, most social protection literature approaches questions of gender with respect to policy and programme design and expected and unexpected outcomes. Mounting interest in gender-responsive and rights-based social protection systems, however, additionally begs a focus on the gendered individuals who mediate the relationship between citizens and these systems, representing the State as duty bearer of realizing the right to social protection. Much of the existing work on street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) focuses on their use of discretion in frontline work and how this shapes beneficiary experiences. This article adapts and extends Durose and Lowndes' (2024) framework for understanding gender and SLB discretion: 1) as shaped by the gendered laws, policies and guidance of institutions where SLBs work, 2) as reflective of SLBs as gendered actors, and 3) as having gendered effects on policy beneficiaries. While their framework was developed in a high-income context and to understand a different sector (policing), these three analytical propositions hold for SLBs in social protection systems. Yet, we suggest that understanding the role of SLBs in social protection systems requires two additional considerations from a human rights perspective: 4) discretion as shaped by the gendered social, political and economic contexts in which SLBs operate and social protection systems exist, and 5) moving beyond discretion, SLBs as rights-holders themselves, of the right to social security and the right to decent work. The article develops this framework in conversation with scholarship on social protection systems in the broad range of contexts in which they operate. In doing so, the article offers an analytical contribution to the emerging literature on gender-responsive social protection systems from a “frontline delivery” and human rights perspective, including their relation to Sustainable Development Goals 5 – gender equality – and 1.3 – social protection systems for all.

Little is known about the effects of the receipt of child-centred cash transfers by men. This article tests whether caregiver sex matters in determining stunting (low height for age) in child beneficiaries of Brazil's Bolsa Família and South Africa's Child Support Grant using household survey data. Overall, we find that caregivers’ socioeconomic and education status are more influential alongside the region of residence. However, among households at intermediate levels of poverty, female recipients are significantly less likely to have stunted children. Improving the complementary service environment while encouraging more men to apply for benefits and to assume caregiving responsibilities could be a transformative, gender-sensitive policy intervention.

The Netherlands is on the brink of reforming its system of occupational pensions as part of a more general reform of its three-pillar pension system. This reform features important changes to first pillar pension benefits. The focus of this article is however on the coming reform of occupational pensions, the second pillar of the system, which concerns both pension contributions and benefits. This reform is related to a series of reforms that have gradually transformed the pension contract that was dominant 20 years ago, a final salary defined benefit contract, into a collective defined contribution contract. We argue that these reforms are a response to changes in the external environment, such as population ageing and a secular decline of interest rates. The coming reform responds to the call for a pension scheme that is more individualistic, more closely connected to the labour market, and which does not share interest rate risks between generations. The New Pension Contract remains in part collective, since the assets of participants are invested collectively, and a mandatory solidarity fund can be used for intergenerational risk sharing.