Social Security And Development

Compact, timely, well-researched, and balanced, this institutional history of Social Security's seventy years shows how the past still influences ongoing reform debates, helping the reader both to understand and evaluate the current partisan arguments on both sides.

A Documentary History tells the story of the creation and development of the U.S. Social Security program through primary source documents, from its antecendents and founding in 1935, to the controversial issues of the present. This unique reference presents the complex history of Social Security in an accessible volume that highlights the program's major moments and events.

The potential role of social protection in the development process has received heightened recognition in recent years, yet making a strong investment case for social protection remains particularly challenging in many emerging and developing countries. This report challenges us to think deeply about the economic rationale for social protection investments through an inclusive development lens. It helps us understand the links between social protection, growth and inequality; how to measure those links empirically; social protection’s impact on inclusive growth; and how to build a more solid economic case for greater social protection investments.

By providing a balanced assessment and factual review of the praticalities and structure behind various pension schemes around the world, this book assists decision-makers in forming effective, viable pension policy.

This ninth phase of the International Social Security project, which studies the experiences of twelve developed countries, examines the effects of public pension reform on employment at older ages. In the past two decades, men’s labor force participation at older ages has increased, reversing a long-term pattern of decline; participation rates for older women have increased dramatically as well. While better health, more education, and changes in labor-supply behavior of married couples may have affected this trend, these factors alone cannot explain the magnitude of the employment increase or its large variation across countries. The studies in this volume explore how financial incentives to work at older ages have evolved as a result of public pension reforms since 1980 and how these changes have affected retirement behavior. Utilizing a common template to analyze the developments across countries, the findings suggest that social security reforms have strengthened the financial returns to working at older ages and that these enhanced financial incentives have contributed to the rise in late-life employment.

This report offers an in-depth overview of the important, and sometimes controversial, issues surrounding social security in a global context: its relationship to employment and development, its extension in terms of personal coverage, and its contribution to gender equality, as well as its financing. Consisting of resolutions and conclusions drawn from the International Labour Conference, 89th Session, 2001, this book contains the report to the conference - prepared for the general discussion on social security and sets out the key topics and priorities for providing and managing social security systems. Global trends in social security expenditure are covered, as the report addresses such pivotal questions as: Is social security facing an ageing crisis? Is it facing a globalization crisis? Has it reached its limits in terms of affordability? The concept of social dialogue, and its part in strengthening and expanding social security, is also discussed and the report considers how family and local solidarity networks, institutions, enterprises, governments and the international community can help enhance the effectiveness of social security. (ILO Website)

Security and development matter: they often involve issues of life and death and they determine the allocation of truly staggering amounts of the world’s resources. Particularly since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there has been momentum in policy circles to merge the issues of security and development to attempt to end conflicts, create durable peace, strengthen failing states, and promote the conditions necessary for people to lead healthier and more prosperous lives. In many ways this blending of security and development agendas seems admirable and designed to produce positive outcomes all around. However, it is often the case that the two concepts in combination do not receive equal weight, with security issues getting priority over development concerns. This is not desirable and actually undermines security in the longer term. Moreover, there are major challenges in practice when security practitioners and development practitioners are asked to agree on priorities and work together. Security and Development in Global Politics illuminates the common points of interest but also the significant differences between security and development agendas and approaches to problem solving. With insightful chapter pairings—each written by a development expert and a security analyst—the book explores seven core international issues: aid, humanitarian assistance, governance, health, poverty, trade and resources, and demography. Using this comparative structure, the book effectively assesses the extent to which there really is a nexus between security and development and, most importantly, whether the link should be encouraged or resisted.