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What can a granular analysis of “non-standard” workers tell us? A new paper by Immervoll et al shows that in pre-Covid times, in most OECD countries workers in “standard” employment have a 70-80% chance of accessing social protection. The paper then unpacks the analysis for the self-employed (p.27), part-time dependent employed (p.29), and unstable dependent employed (p.30). And here comes the news: for half of the sample of 16 countries (i.e., Australia, Austria, Belgium, Germany, France, Hungary, Spain, and UK), the authors found that, contrary to conventional wisdom, there is only a limited gap between coverage provisions accorded to standard versus non-standard workers . Conversely, differences were more pronounced in other countries, including non-standard workers...Read more

By Shahra Razavi, Christina Behrendt, Valeria Nesterenko, Ian Orton, Celine Peyron Bista, Alvaro Ramos Chavez, Helmut Schwarzer, Maya Stern-Plaza and Veronika Wodsak | International Labour Organization (ILO) The consensus on the need to build universal social protection systems to provide income security and health protection for all has been reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis that shook the world over the past two years not only revealed large gaps in coverage, adequacy and comprehensiveness of social protection systems but also drove the message home that a universal social protection system reaching everyone is automatically primed to protect all those affected by a systemic shock. In the face of complex and fast-moving crises, universalism is preferable...Read more

What are the effects of poverty targeting (PMT) in contexts where everyone is similarly vulnerable? A new paper by Della Guardia et al examines the question in the context of Chad , where a cash transfer program covered 40% of the population in 7 villages of the Logone region (where 98% lived on less than $1.9/day). A number of positive spillover effects include supporting family or neighbors by sharing transfers, as well as helping create community infrastructure. There were also positive outcomes by increased spending in local markets, employing workers, and investing in household businesses. Yet poverty targeting also generated deep animosity, resentment, and divisions within communities. This led to discriminatory practices directed against cash transfer recipients...Read more

Let’s get the facts right: we know that the war in Ukraine is accelerating food price inflation (the food price index is at the highest level ever recorded). We also know that such increases are possibly having, as pointed out by Barrett, adverse effects on about half of the world’s population . What we don’t know is how governments are responding with social protection… until now! Our brand-new tracker helps fill such gap by documenting how governments are using social protection to mitigate price shocks . The tracker provides key information on 84 countries and 221 social protection schemes. Headline message? Not what many would like to hear: almost 80% of the response comes in the form of subsidies, with cash (mostly unconditional)...Read more