Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Global cities
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Now is the future for social security

Paul Schoukens and Enzo Weber 8th November 2022

In a Europe of increasingly non-standard employment, social protection for all is more rather than less imperative.

social security,social insurance,social assistance,atypical work,non-standard,platform,freelance,self-employed
Social-security systems need to be integrated and individualised, so workers coping with a changing combination of demands can accumulate protection (PeopleImages.com-Yuri A / shutterstock.com)

Improving the social protection of atypical workers has been high on the European agenda in recent years. With the European Pillar of Social Rights of 2017, the European Union sought to break away from a decade of austerity and strict economic monitoring, where social considerations were often neglected in favour of budgetary concerns. And three years ago today, the Council of the EU Recommendation on access to social protection for workers and the self-employed strengthened the pillar by urging member states to set minimum standards on social protection and extend the coverage of social-security systems.

Since then, these systems have been confronted with immense challenges. But the Covid-19 crisis showed once more the merits of having a decent social-security system in place.

Income stability

Such a system guarantees income stability and support when individuals and households face adversity. This not only minimises hardship but strengthens confidence and career prospects. It also safeguards the economy as a whole from negative shocks. Social-insurance payments mean the costs of risk protection are reflected in market prices, moral hazard is avoided and social-assistance schemes are able to focus on their core tasks.

At the same time, the pandemic revealed the gaps in social security and the vulnerability of uncovered groups. This is due to an emerging trend in labour markets. The organisation of labour is becoming more flexible, due to ever-growing digitalisation in existing industries, globalisation and market pressures, as well as personal preferences. Flexible forms of work—freelance, platform, on-demand, casual, part-time and self-employed (bogus or real)—have increased and now account for about two in five of the EU workforce.


Become part of our Community of Thought Leaders


Get fresh perspectives delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for our newsletter to receive thought-provoking opinion articles and expert analysis on the most pressing political, economic and social issues of our time. Join our community of engaged readers and be a part of the conversation.

Sign up here

Flexible work forms create various challenges for the organisation and financing of work-related social-security schemes, traditionally designed with the standard worker in mind. More and more workers no longer have a nine-to-five job, nor do they always work for one employer. Their income may be irregular and more dependent on the number of assignments and negotiated rates than on the hours of work.

Many social-security systems stem from the first industrial revolution and thus need to adapt their strengths to a changing world. They need to be reshaped to encompass the new work forms. Applying existing schemes, originally designed for standard work situations, will not suffice. Solutions need to be more fundamental, while preserving the essentials of social security: guaranteeing decent income replacement if a social risk (such as unemployment or long-term illness) eventuates and ensuring that serious costs by which individuals or households may be hit (such as health and social care) are met.

Integrated and individualised

Looking at the new ways of working, social-security systems will need to become integrated, starting from the perspective of individuals’ working lives. More than ever these may involve shifts over time in occupational statuses (wage-earning, self-employment, payment by hours worked) or may combine them at any one point in time.

The element of income will become more important in the design of protection schemes than the length and composition of employment records. In the new paradigm, every earned euro must count for social security, for the financing and the accrual of insurance. This will decisively increase the effective coverage of social security while avoiding perverse incentives to create statuses lacking in social protection. The basic idea should be similar protection for all groups, adapted in application as much as necessary to meet their specific needs.

The implications are:—

  • for the self-employed: social security should be as similar as possible to that for employees but with appropriate rules to deal with specifics, such as fluctuating income and greater personal freedom;
  • for labour-market marginals, part-time and fixed-term workers: income and working-time thresholds will have to be addressed to improve access to social protection, guaranteeing comprehensive protection by targeting total income rather than only that derived from standard employment and basing social security on income aggregated over the life course;
  • for platform workers: where platforms are central agents in online labour markets, the organisation of social security can be linked to these new actors, for instance by establishing personal digital accounts for workers where contributions from a range of platforms can be accumulated.

Rethinking systems

The Covid-19 crisis made it clear that we need to rethink our social-security systems in light of changing labour markets. It falls to EU member states to respond in line with their own needs and traditions, to the EU to inspire and set the regulatory framework within which they can develop their systems, and to social scientists to diagnose the challenges and elaborate policy proposals.

Far from being a relic of the past, now is the future for social security.

This article has stemmed from a working group at the European Institute of Social Security, which also includes Fenicia Aceto, Martina Axmin, Alberto Barrio, Charlotte Bruynseraede, Elisabeth Brameshuber, Eleni De Becker, Mijke Houwerzijl, Catherine Jacqueson, Sabrine Magoga-Sabatier, Thomas Pfalz, María Salas, Grega Strban, Anna Tsetoura, Johanna Vallistu, Eva van Ooij and Annamaria Westregård


Support Progressive Ideas: Become a Social Europe Member!


Support independent publishing and progressive ideas by becoming a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month. You can help us create more high-quality articles, podcasts and videos that challenge conventional thinking and foster a more informed and democratic society. Join us in our mission - your support makes all the difference!

Become a Social Europe Member

Paul Schoukens
Paul Schoukens

Paul Schoukens is professor of social-security law at KU Leuven (Belgium) and Tilburg University (the Netherlands). He is secretary-general of the European Institute of Social Security. His research interests are in the social protection of self-employed persons and atypical workers, healthcare systems, and e-technology and social-security administration.

Enzo Weber
Enzo Weber

Enzo Weber is a professor of economics at the Institute for Employment Research, Germany’s largest institute in the social sciences. He is a researcher and political adviser in the transformation of labour markets, demographic change and social security.

You are here: Home / Society / Now is the future for social security

Most Popular Posts

Russia,information war Russia is winning the information warAiste Merfeldaite
Nanterre,police Nanterre and the suburbs: the lid comes offJoseph Downing
Russia,nuclear Russia’s dangerous nuclear consensusAna Palacio
Belarus,Lithuania A tale of two countries: Belarus and LithuaniaThorvaldur Gylfason and Eduard Hochreiter
retirement,Finland,ageing,pension,reform Late retirement: possible for many, not for allKati Kuitto

Most Recent Posts

Nagorno-Karabakh,European Union,EU,Azerbaijan,Armenia Azerbaijan exploits vacuum on Nagorno-KarabakhGeorge Meneshian
Abuse,work,workplace,violence Abuse at work: who bears the brunt?Agnès Parent-Thirion and Viginta Ivaskaite-Tamosiune
Ukraine,fatigue Ukraine’s cause: momentum is diminishingStefan Wolff and Tetyana Malyarenko
Vienna,social housing Vienna social-housing model: celebrated but misusedGabu Heindl
social democracy,nation-state Social democracy versus the nativist rightJan Zielonka

Other Social Europe Publications

strategic autonomy Strategic autonomy
Bildschirmfoto 2023 05 08 um 21.36.25 scaled 1 RE No. 13: Failed Market Approaches to Long-Term Care
front cover Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The summer issue of the Progressive Post magazine by FEPS is out!

The Special Coverage of this new edition is dedicated to the importance of biodiversity, not only as a good in itself but also for the very existence of humankind. We need a paradigm change in the mostly utilitarian relation humans have with nature.

In this issue, we also look at the hazards of unregulated artificial intelligence, explore the shortcomings of the EU's approach to migration and asylum management, and analyse the social downside of the EU's current ethnically-focused Roma policy.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI European Collective Bargaining Report 2022 / 2023

With real wages falling by 4 per cent in 2022, workers in the European Union suffered an unprecedented loss in purchasing power. The reason for this was the rapid increase in consumer prices, behind which nominal wage growth fell significantly. Meanwhile, inflation is no longer driven by energy import prices, but by domestic factors. The increased profit margins of companies are a major reason for persistent inflation. In this difficult environment, trade unions are faced with the challenge of securing real wages—and companies have the responsibility of making their contribution to returning to the path of political stability by reducing excess profits.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The future of remote work

The 12 chapters collected in this volume provide a multidisciplinary perspective on the impact and the future trajectories of remote work, from the nexus between the location from where work is performed and how it is performed to how remote locations may affect the way work is managed and organised, as well as the applicability of existing legislation. Additional questions concern remote work’s environmental and social impact and the rapidly changing nature of the relationship between work and life.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound Talks: does Europe have the skills it needs for a changing economy?

In this episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast, Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound’s research manager, Tina Weber, its senior research manager, Gijs van Houten, and Giovanni Russo, senior expert at CEDEFOP (The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training), about Europe’s skills challenges and what can be done to help workers and businesses adapt to future skills demands.

Listen where you get your podcasts, or for free, by clicking on the link below


LISTEN HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube