Weekly Social Protection Links: 19 May 2023
Let’s begin with data! ILO’s new World Employment and Social Outlook offers some very juicy factoids relevant for social protection: global unemployment affects 205 million people (plus 268 million who are outside the labor force) (p.12); an estimated 214 million workers are living in extreme poverty – that’s 6.4% of the employed population, a rate that reaches nearly 40% in low-income countries (p.43). Informal workers account for about 2 billion people; but contrary to conventional wisdom, informality declined by 5 percentage points between 2004 and 2019 (followed by an uptick, with around 2/3 of job gains between 2020 and 2022 being informal, see p.44). In middle income countries, over half of workers are in wage employment (56.5-66.9%) (p.46); and while for countries’ post pandemic extreme poverty rates (2022) have declined or remained stable relative to pre-COVID levels (2019), absolute numbers of people living in poverty have grown in low-income settings (from 92.7 to 101.6 million) (see table 1.4 p.43). And summary infographics on p.21 are super helpful!
Now let me move to country-level action: by analyzing five cash transfer interventions in Lesotho and Malawi, Hemsteede argues that donor-designed approaches “create space for new state-citizen relations”, although governments remain wary of embracing programs fiscally due to differing views on deservingness. Bonus on Malawi: a blog by Mkutumula et al lays out 6 steps for financing a scalable social protection mechanism for early crisis response (e.g., see figure 1 for an overview and figure 2 on triggers).
Speaking of crises… a report by FSIN and Global Network Against Food Crises estimates that 258 million people faced acute food insecurity in 2022 (IPC/CH Phase 3-5), up from 193 million recorded the previous year. And since I mentioned food, Weldemichel weighs in on the decision to suspend the delivery of food aid to Tigray.
More on humanitarian issues: Lough et al present findings on inclusion and exclusion in humanitarian assistance from their three-year study. The analysis, which came out some months ago, was based on case studies from Nigeria, Bangladesh, Jordan, and the Philippines and offers ten recommendations tailored by actor (see p.55-60). And Roane offers four ways in which ChatGPT could help level the humanitarian playing field.
Shifting to resilience, why should climate funds be used for social protection? Sitko et al give you some good reasons, including that climate adaptation is costly for small-scale farmers while social protection also helps reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
What’s new on health? Tsai et al estimate the effects of US pandemic cash transfers (stimulus checks) on 158 veterans. Assessed multiple times between May 2020 and July 2021, about one-third of the group presented a psychotic disorder, another third was homeless, and a comparison group was affected by neither psychosis nor homelessness. Results shows that participants who received a greater number of stimulus checks reported significantly decreased symptoms of depression and anxiety. The homeless group decreased alcohol intoxication and drug use, but the reverse was found for the psychosis group.
More on the health, but from Brazil: Ortelan et al studied the effects of Bolsa cash transfers, which are tied to prenatal care appointments, on about 680,000 participants and found that the program reduced extreme pre-term births (see table 2, p.13-14).
From LAC to the Middle East! A paper by Gansey et al found that in Egypt, expanded COVID cash transfers to Egypt’s informal and tourism sectors played a substantial role in smoothing the initial labor income shock by the pandemic – that is, in the absence of those transfers, income poverty would have been 1.1 percentage points higher.
From assistance to insurance in the region: an assessment of the financial position of the Lebanese National Social Security Fund (NSSF) and its branches managing sickness/maternity, end of service indemnity, and family allowances. Their fiscal status is positive, but they lag behind in terms of adequacy and alignment with costs of living. A vicious cycle is established, whereby under-declaration of salaries implies fewer resources to adjust and pay benefits; this leads to lower trust in the NSSF and diminishing contributions. The analysis, laid out in captivating PPT-style, concludes that “two high-level reforms are inevitable: structural changes to the current health coverage schemes, and a new old-age pension scheme”.
A similar study on OPT by Fallah et al reveals that only 36% of Palestinian ex-workers received end-of-service indemnity, and nearly all that didn’t (92%) did not take any measure against their employers (but law compliance is higher for work-related injuries, paid sick leave and maternity leave allowances) (h/t Luca Pellerano).
Oh, before we leave the labor-insurance nexus: Satriana and Attenborough call for shifting from provident funds to government-funded pensions for older people in Pacific Island Countries and Timor-Leste.
Let’s wrap it up with an upcoming event on Jordan’s National Unified Registry (May 30), one on social protection research in Asia and Pacific (June 1), and a recent podcast featuring Eisenstadt on improving outcomes for children in poverty.
Ugo Gentilini is from the World Bank’s Social Protection & Jobs global practice. The Social Protection Links newsletter, issued every Friday, distills and discusses a selection of curated resources on the topic, from academic articles to podcasts. The blog is republished on socialprotection.org each week, offering knowledge on social protection to help you stay on top of it — succinctly, regularly and frequently. Previous editions can be found here.
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