The cross‐border portability of social security benefits: Status and progress?

Abstract

The importance of the cross-border portability of social benefits is increasing in parallel with the rise in the absolute number of international migrants and their share of the world population, and perhaps more importantly with the much higher and rising share of the world population that for some part of their life is working and/or retiring abroad. This article estimates how the rising stock of migrants is distributed over four key portability regimes ranging from portability through bilateral social security arrangements to undocumented workers with no access to any scheme. The comparison of estimates for 2000 and 2013 indicate a modest but noticeable increase in the share of migrants under regime I (full portability) by 1.4 per cent, but the biggest change occurred under regime III (no access to social security but also no contributions required), which almost doubled to 9.4 per cent. Regime II (potential exportability without totalization) reduced by 3.0 percentage points but remains the dominant scheme (at 53.2 per cent). The estimates suggest that the scope of regime IV (informality) reduced by 2.9 percentage points, accounting for 14.0 per cent of all migrants in 2013. This trend is positive, 65 but more will need to be done to progress on benefit portability and various potential solutions lie outside bilateral agreements that are difficult to establish.

Welfare Magnets and Internal Migration in China

“…All these findings confirm the existence of sizable welfare magnet effects. This paper joins a young literature on the consequences of poor portability of welfare benefits, either within-or between-countries (Holzmann and Werding 2015;Holzmann 2018;Holzmann and Wels 2018). The finding that improved welfare benefits substantially increase migration echoes several empirical studies testing the welfare magnet hypothesis in developed countries (Borjas 1999;Kaushal 2005;Razin and Wahba 2015;Agersnap, Jensen, and Kleven 2019).…”

Addressing the Impact of Border Enforcement Measures on the Self-Reported Health of Migrants Aiming to Enter Japan During the COVID-19 Epidemic.

“…This generates costs for the host countries that are not borne by Japan. A framework to evaluate and make possible potential financial transfers exists through bilateral social security agreements (41)(42)(43), and Japan have signed many of them over the past decades. Border enforcement measures are a national policy that has effects on the local economy but also international development.…”

“…A growing number of studies currently underlines the effects of these measures including, to name just a few, the impact of work arrangements on workers physical and mental health (6,7), the gender discrepancies in health outcomes (6,(8)(9)(10) or the long-term consequence of the epidemic on mental health, suicide rates, violence and so on (11). Among these effects, migration control is a major concern though it is often viewed under the framework of access to health system (12) and social security in the host country or when moving back to the country of origin (13). No studies have looked at the situation of those affected by border enforcement implemented since February 2020 even though the relationship between internal (14) and international mobilities and the spread of COVID-19 is largely discussed in the recent literature (15,16).…”

The portability of social rights of the United Kingdom with the European Union: Facts, issues, and prospects

“…The most prominent way is through BSSAs or their equivalent. Yet, as of 2013, only 23 per cent of international migrants profited from BSSAs or similar arrangements, which is only a slight increase since 2000 (Holzmann and Wels, 2018). Applying this per centage to the estimated number of international migrants (258 million in 2017), this amounts to 60 million people under such a privileged arrangement.…”