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Description:
Access to social security has always been, and is still, a social policy issue of major concern and it has, despite all the developments and achievements of the last century, not ceased to be a question of appropriately circumscribing the scope of personal coverage.
Access to social security can prove difficult under various aspects. The first involves the protection of non-citizens which, despite its long-standing history, remains on the list of the most serious problems: because of the linkages and tensions between social security and redistribution, and between citizenship, immigration policies, the legitimation of redistributive measures through voting, and human rights. The second relates to the fact that traditional social insurance systems are employment-based, with the consequence that this form of social security is selective. It not only leaves out all persons without employment, but also those who work in the so-called informal sector. Moreover, social assistance is often provided on a categorical basis, excluding in principle not only the able-bodied but also non-citizens.
The completion and success of this study is thanks to the efforts and contributions of legal scholars from South Africa and Germany, as well as a social security expert from Zimbabwe. The participants describe and analyse the problems from a specific perspective. Issues covered relate to access to social security for non-citizens and informal sector workers not only from a domestic law perspective, but also from the perspective of public international, supra-national and regional instruments. In this way, the contributions to this book give an overview of a broad variety of legal questions encountered in different legal orders and most importantly an outsider’s perspective on a foreign social security system. |
