Social Security: Paradigm Shift

The primary goal of social security is to ensure access to health and social services, to provide income security to cope with uncertainties of life (like: loss of income due to retirement, injury during work, disability, unemployment etc.,) and prevent poverty. In the age of globalization, social security is considered to be one of the important welfare programs, as it acts as a shield for people in general. Since its inception after the Great Depression, it has come long way to cater to the needs of the people. The fundamental goals of social security differ according to the demographic, socio-economic factors of the developed and the developing countries. In the case of developing countries, the factors affecting social security are basically socio-economic, like poverty, unemployed youth, etc., whereas, in the case of developed countries, social security programs are mostly affected due to the fast changing demographic factors. These factors include increase in the average life span of people post retirement, increasing female participation in the workforce, affordability of the government pocket, etc. Social security was initially targeted at only the aged, the retired, and families of workers who were either disabled or deceased. But, today, in order to cater to the emerging needs, social security has expanded its scope to women and children as well. Social security benefits to women have become a prominent phenomenon. With this expanding scope of Social security, governments are finding it difficult to finance the welfare programs in the long run. With the average life span increasing, dependents will be more and hence, this cost will be proportional to the funding of the social security benefits provided to one particular family. Today, the need is felt to shift towards privatization. How far this shift would be acceptable or not is yet to be decided. This book "Social Security: Paradigm Shift" has tried to cover the various aspects, giving some examples of countries like USA, UK, India, China, etc. How these countries have been able to cater to the needs of social security of their respective nations has been discussed.