The Changing Nature of Work: 30 signals to consider for a sustainable future

SIGNAL 17. Social protection

The changing nature of work inevitably requires new safety nets to ensure that disruptions do not worsen levels of existing inequalities or jeopardize human dignity. There is a growing understanding that government social protection measures will largely become outdated due to changes in demographics and the increasing number of people engaged in independent forms of work.

For Europe and Central Asia, one should be aware that there are vast differences in how countries approach social protection policies; for instance, although 84 percent of the population in the region are covered by at least one social protection benefit, 56 percent of unemployed persons receive benefits in Eastern Europe compared to only 12 percent in Central and Western Asia. Therefore, countries are in different starting positions in designing the 21st century social protection systems.

The usual solution to social protection challenges focuses on extending social protection coverage to certain categories of non-salaried and vulnerable workers, and lowering thresholds of minimum working hours, earnings or duration of employment, etc. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, discussions have intensified on introducing universal basic income (UBI) and temporary basic income (TBI) – social protection models that provide sufficient income to sustain a person at a modest level, still leaving incentives to work, save and invest. Recently, a number of governments have committed to TBI-like payments for workers who have lost income due to the pandemic. A quick overview of UBI/TBI-like experiments in various countries shows moderately positive outcomes concerning better health and education, and poverty reduction, but further research is needed. For instance, there are knowledge gaps in UBI’s impact at the community level and in the necessary enabling environments for these models. Hence, there are numerous anti-UBI views, which focus on reduced motivation to seek employment and lower productivity. Its introduction would require rethinking taxation models; nevertheless, the above-mentioned developments could move countries towards the adoption of UBI and similar models.

As the number of people involved in the gig economy increases, the issue of the lack of a workable model for social dialogue between employers and ‘gigers’ is put on the agenda. Throughout the world and in Eurasia in particular, we have seen an increasing number of strikes against unfair work conditions of platform workers. Another aspect to consider is people contributing to a foreign country while enjoying the social benefits of their home residence, which raises questions about social justice. In our opinion, this is a strong signal for the need to find a way for tripartite consultations (i.e. involving the employer, the employee and the state) on the gig economy (both in the country of residence and the beneficiary country) and modern technologies; new approaches such as collective intelligence could help in this regard.

Moreover, governments worldwide are experimenting with broadening social security schemes for nonstandard workers; these experiments vary greatly, such as financing schemes from taxation, introducing voluntary schemes, and targeting particular types of non-standard occupation. It should also be highlighted that one of the key factors to enable social protection of people employed on digital platforms is that all transactions should be traceable. We could therefore see some rapid advancements in regulating these platforms in the near future.

Check out the next signal, #18: Public versus private jobs

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The Changing Nature of Work: 30 signals to consider for a sustainable future

Work helps sustain livelihoods and largely determines the quality of life. Its changing nature is at the frontier of development. This report is the result of a broad horizon scanning by six UNDP Accelerator Labs across Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.  They reveal 30 signals that shape the “where, who, how, and why” of the changing nature of work. From the impact of COVID-19 on the workforce to new work models and entrepreneurial ecosystems, the authors explore opportunities and threats, as well as solutions from local contexts that can be scaled up into positive answers to the challenges people around the world are facing.  Download the full report here.