Social Protection at the Crossroads — In Pursuit of a Better Future
Discover how COVID-19 impacted social protection efforts around the world and how programming must adapt to newly identified stressors.
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Despite progress in recent years in extending social protection in many parts of the world, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many countries were still facing significant challenges in making the human right to social security a reality for all. The World Social Protection Report 2020-22 provides a global overview of progress made around the world over the past decade in extending social protection and building rights-based social protection systems, including floors, and covers the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, it provides an essential contribution to the monitoring framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Key Takeaways
- The pandemic has exposed deep-seated inequalities and significant gaps in social protection coverage, comprehensiveness and adequacy across all countries.
- COVID-19 provoked an unparalleled social protection policy response.
- Socioeconomic recovery remains uncertain and enhanced social protection spending will continue to be crucial.
- Countries are at a crossroads with regard to the trajectory of their social protection systems.
- Establishing universal social protection and realizing the human right to social security for all is the cornerstone of a human-centered approach to obtaining social justice.
The State of Social Protection
As of 2020, only 46.9% of the global population were effectively covered by at least one social protection benefit, while the remaining 53.1% — as many as 4.1 billion people — were left wholly unprotected.
Only 30.6% of the working-age population are legally covered by comprehensive social security systems that include a full range of benefits, from child and family benefits to old-age pensions, with women’s coverage lagging behind men’s by a substantial eight percentage points. This implies that the large majority of the working-age population — 69.4%, or 4 billion people — are only partially protected or not protected at all.
Gaps in the coverage, comprehensiveness and adequacy of social protection systems are associated with significant underinvestment in social protection, particularly in Africa, the Arab States and Asia. Countries spend on average 12.9% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on social protection (excluding health), but this figure masks staggering variations. High-income countries spend, on average, 16.4%, or twice as much as upper-middle-income countries (which spend 8%), six times as much as lower-middle-income countries (2.5%), and 15 times as much as low-income countries (1.1%).
COVID-19’s Effect on Social Protection
This financing gap for building social protection floors has widened by approximately 30% since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, owing to the increased need for health care services, income security measures and reductions in GDP caused by the crisis.
COVID-19 threatens to imperil years of progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reversing gains in poverty reduction. It has also revealed the pre-existing stark protection gaps across all countries and made it impossible for policymakers to ignore the persistent social protection deficits experienced in particular by certain groups, such as informal workers, migrants and unpaid caretakers. This crisis has resulted in an unprecedented, yet uneven, global social protection response. Higher-income countries were better placed to mobilize their existing systems or introduce new emergency measures to contain the impact of the crisis on health, jobs and incomes. Mounting a response was more challenging in lower-income contexts, which were woefully ill prepared and had less room for policy maneuver, especially in macroeconomic policy.
Working Toward a Socially Just Future
COVID-19 has further underscored the critical importance of achieving universal social protection. It is essential that countries — governments, social partners and other stakeholders — now resist the pressures to fall back on a low-road trajectory and that they pursue a high-road social protection strategy to contend with the ongoing pandemic, and to secure a human-centered recovery and an inclusive future. To this end, several priorities can be identified:
- COVID-19 social protection measures must be maintained until the crisis has subsided and recovery is well under way. This will require continued investment in social protection systems to maintain living standards, ensure equitable vaccine access and healthcare, and prevent further economic contraction.
- The temptation to revert to fiscal consolidation to pay for the massive public expenditure outlays necessitated by COVID-19 must be avoided.
- Amid the devastation wrought by the pandemic, there are glimmers of hope that mindsets have shifted. If a “whatever it takes” policy approach is applied as the worst of the pandemic abates, this holds promise for taking the high road to achieve the SDGs and universal social protection.
- Taking that high road requires building permanent, universal social protection systems that provide adequate and comprehensive coverage to all, guided by effective tripartite social dialogue.
- Further investment in social protection is required now to fill financing gaps.
- Universal social protection is supported through the joint efforts of the United Nations agencies “working as one.”
- The unique policy window pried open by COVID-19 should embolden countries to take decisive action now about the future of social protection and pursue a high-road policy approach with vigor. Ultimately, a robust social protection system will shore up and repair a fragile social contract and enable countries to enjoy a socially just future.