How portable is social security for migrant workers? A review of the literature

Abstract

This article reviews the recent literature on existing mechanisms that allow for the portability of social security entitlements for migrant workers and finds that North–North migrants have the best access to portability. There is limited coordination between origin and destination countries regarding the portability of social entitlements of South–North migrants. These migrants are dealing with discourses and policies that treat them as second class citizens, even as they are providing much‐needed labour to their host countries. South–South migrants are seeing new regional mechanisms addressing portability. However, many of the impacts of these mechanisms are not yet known. Other knowledge gaps on portability relate to internal and South–South migration, the role of gender and other social identities, migrants’ occupations as well as their legal immigration status.

Gendered Migrations and Global Social Reproduction

“…In many countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America rural-urban migration comprises 40 per cent of urban growth (Deshingkar 2005;Skeldon 2006). Indeed China's internal movements constitute the largest movements in world history (Taha et al 2013). Though the urban population has grown rapidly in the past 20 years in China, it still only constitutes about 44 per cent of the total; temporary migration to the city is far greater than permanent migration so that rural-urban links remain very strong.…”

Do bilateral social security agreements deliver on the portability of pensions and health care benefits? A summary policy paper on four migration corridors between EU and non-EU member states

“…While these arguments may have some validity for national labor markets, it is doubtful that such a human Tobin tax through imperfect portability is relevant in cases of cross-border mobility, as the other involved costs will remain high. 5 For some historic and legal background on BSSAs, see Strban (2009); for a review of issues of BSSAs with non-members within the EU context, see Spiegel (2010); for a legal analysis of social security coordination with southern and eastern Europe, see ILO (International Labour Organization) (2012); for a review of literature, see Taha et al (2015). For the texts of the bilateral social security agreements worldwide, see the ILO NATLEX database: www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex4.search?p_lang=en.…”

“…The paper thus fills an important institutional knowledge gap in the policy discourse of international labor mobility. While the portability of social security has received increasing attention over the last decade-starting essentially with Holzmann et al (2005) and including a recent review of literature (Taha et al 2015)-no attempt has been made to date to explore the functioning of its claimed key institution: BSSAs. Do BSSAs really deliver on what is expected and what are the key areas of concern and improvement?…”

“…Neither a regional nor a worldwide inventory of BSSAs has been conducted to describe their basic features in a comprehensive, analytical way (for example, type of benefits covered, depth and type of coordination on such benefits). To the author's knowledge, no other qualitative study even less so any quantitative analysis has ever been undertaken and published to explore the functioning of BSSAs, to highlight the strengths and weakness of their operation, or to evaluate them against predefined criteria 8 ; this assessment resonates with a recent review of literature (Taha et al 2015). A very first and incomplete attempt in this direction was undertaken by Holzmann et al (2005) based on information gathered for a few migration corridors.…”

Advancing A Health-Care Cross-Regional Model To Conform Eu Policies And Migration Factors

“…The rebirth of the discussion over the reasons of the migrant population of choosing the European Union (EU) instead of another region/ continent delved great debates between the "centralized" European planning of social services and the competing traditional forces granting the "porting" of social services at the edge of social security (Taha, Siegmann & Messkoub, 2015).…”