Expert Speak Raisina Debates
Published on Jan 30, 2020
While social protection coverage has increased in many parts of the world, it is evident that many countries, both developed and developing, struggle to meet the basic social protection needs of their populations.
The future of social protection: Is falling through the cracks the new normal?

Social protections are social insurance and assistance programmes designed to ensure the basic wellbeing of citizens. They are meant to mitigate the risks and needs associated with unemployment, parental responsibilities, sickness and healthcare, loss of a spouse or parent, old age, housing, and social exclusion. <1> The extent and nature of coverage of such schemes varies from universal to means-tested and targeted provision.

While social protection coverage has increased in many parts of the world, it is evident that many countries, both developed and developing, struggle to meet the basic social protection needs of their populations. Today, just 29% of the global population has comprehensive coverage, while 55% of the population is not covered by any social protection scheme. <2>

How can the economic and social benefits of social protections be brought to more people? Three contemporary concepts of social protection must be rethought: 1) the role of the employer as the point of provision for social protections; 2) the notion of family as the unit of eligibility and entitlement; and 3) the suitability of the nation state as the sole provider. Failing to address these fundamental questions will likely lead to a growing number of people falling through the cracks of social protection programmes.

Beyond the employer

Informal employment aside, the share of individuals working in formal nonstandard employment, such as part-time, self-employed, temporary, on-call, and flexible hour contracts, <3> is significant across the globe. Non-standard work is not a characteristic of emerging or developing economies alone. On average across the OECD, one in six workers are self-employed and 13% have temporary contracts. In the United States, the share of workers engaged in non-standard employment increased from 10.7% of the total workforce in 2005 to 15.8% in 2015. <4> In many countries, online platform workers account for a small but increasing share of nonstandard employment.

Non-standard work is not a characteristic of emerging or developing economies alone. On average across the OECD, one in six workers are self-employed and 13% have temporary contracts.

Most social protection systems, however, are designed around the premise of fulltime employment, whereby the employer is the main point of provision for parental leave, sickness, accident insurance, and health insurance. <5> For non-standard workers, including those in the gig economy, this often means that they are uncovered by such protections.

Given the high prevalence of non-standard work coupled with high rates of informal employment across the globe, employer-provided social protections leave large segments of society without necessary social protections. A fundamental rethinking of the role of employers is needed.

Modern families

The family unit plays a central role in social protection eligibility and entitlements. There is no single family form, but policies are often designed around an ‘ideal’ family model of two parents with children. In reality, just 38% of households globally fit this description. <6> While there is heterogeneity among countries, some trends are widespread: fertility rates are declining; people are marrying and having children later; more people are not having children; divorce rates are increasing; more couples are cohabiting; life expectancy is increasing; and more women are participating in the labour force. Effective policies to reduce risk and improve wellbeing must therefore be based on what families actually look like, not what they ‘should’ look like.

In many regions, cohabitation — unmarried couples living together — is commonplace or on the rise. In most contexts cohabiting and non-married partners do not have the same rights as married couples. <7> That is, social insurance schemes such as life insurance and health insurance are linked to marriage. Without legal recognition of relationships and the validity of different family constellations, individuals are unable to access such protections.

At the same time, most parts of the world have seen a rise in female labour force participation. However, women have on average shorter and more interrupted career trajectories, earn less than men, do more unpaid work, and are more likely to be represented in the informal sector and as contributing family workers. <8> When social protections are linked to employment, women have lower coverage when compared to men. Moreover, contributory social protection schemes — those that individuals pay into over time, such as pensions — tend to under-serve women, as they are able to make lower contributions over the course of their careers. This is evident in the fact that women have less access to pensions than men in all regions of the world. <9> Furthermore, the above factors mean that women’s savings and asset accumulation tend to be lower when compared to men’s. Together these factors not only leave women with fewer social protections, they also create a protection dependency dynamic within the family.

When social protections are linked to employment, women have lower coverage when compared to men.

Yet another trend is an increasing share of single-parent households as a result of rising divorce rates and more people having children on their own. These households are more at risk of income shocks and poverty than two-parent households. <10> Parental employment rates, access to resources, and inheritance and marital property laws are important determinants of poverty among single-parent households. <11> Because the nature of risks faced by lone parents are different than those of two-parent households, they require different income and in-kind policy measures. <12> Affordable housing and childcare, paid leave, and child maintenance schemes are critical levers of support for lone parents. <13>

Recognition of changing patterns of family formation is critical for designing social protection measures that match the needs of actual families.

Borderless protections

Lastly, in a globalised world the role of the nation-state as the sole provider of social protections needs to be rethought. The global community has signed onto collective ambitions outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At least five of the SDGs relate to social protections — recognising their transnational and international importance.

Achieving universal social protection coverage and fulfilling global commitments will require collective, cross-border action. It is time to conceive not just of coordinated action towards extended coverage at the national level, but of an international protection scheme. Such a scheme could leverage digital technologies to connect people across countries. Its aim would be to provide social insurance and assistance to individuals that remain uncovered, allowing anyone to opt-in to affordable basic coverage anywhere in the world.

A borderless protection scheme could address a number of underlying issues, including the needs of stateless people, refugees, and asylum seekers; the increasing need for global protection systems for migrants more broadly; and the failure of states to meet the social protection needs of certain segments of society. Today, more than 220 million people live in a country of which they do not have citizenship. <14> If all of these people were living in one country, it would be the fifth largest in the world. Of these 220 million people, very few are eligible for any kind of social protections in their host countries, highlighting a need for new social protection frameworks that are transnational in nature.

Significant improvements have been made towards universal social protection coverage. Yet, there are underlying constructs that limit the effectiveness of such efforts. As outlined above, these include the employer-based model of provision, narrow concepts of family in the design of social protection schemes, and the nation-state as the sole provider. As we design new models for the future, we must call these underlying concepts into question.


<1> European Commission, “Review of the Social Situation and the Development of Social Protection Policies in Member States and the Union,” Annual Report from the Social Protection Committee, 2019.

<2> UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Promoting Inclusion Through Social Protection: Report on the World Social Situation 2018 (UN, 2018), 8.

<3> OECD, The Future of Social Protection: What Works for Non-standard Workers? (Paris: OECD, 2018).

<4> Lawrence F. Katz and Alan B. Krueger, “The Rise and Nature of Alternative Work Arrangements in the United States, 1995-2015”, NBER Working Paper No. 22667, September 2016,

<5> Cristina Rat, “Access to Social Protections for Workers and Self-Employed”, European Commission, 2019,

<6> UN Women, “Progress of the World’s Women 2019-2020: Families in A Changing World,” 2019, 41.

<7> Ibid, 236.

<8> ILO, World Social Protection Report 2017-2019: Universal Social protection to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (ILO-Geneva: ILO, 2017), 175

<9> UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Promoting Inclusion Through Social Protection: Report on the World Social Situation 2018 (UN: 2018), 18

<10> OECD, “Chapter 1: Families are Changing,” Doing Better for Families (OECD: 2011), 36.

<11> See note 6, p.109.

<12> See note 6, p. 108.

<13> See note 6, p. 130.

<14> Peggy Levitt, Jocelyn Viterna, Amin Mueller, and Charlotte Lloyd, “Transnational Social Protection: Setting the Agenda,” Oxford Development Studies 45, no. 1 (2017): 2-19.

The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.