Global Dynamics of Coverage and Generosity in Work-Injury Compensation, Unemployment and Old-Age Pensions

In the first phase of the CRC 1342, project A02 investigated determinants of the introduction of national work-injury compensation, unemployment and old-age pension insurance across the globe. The second phase will focus on the national and international determinants of de jure coverage and generosity of these social security programmes using macro-quantitative methods. In addition, the mechanisms of de jure and de facto access to means-tested social pensions are analysed in depth in a case study on Bangladesh.

In a first step, data on de jure coverage and generosity (i. e. replacement rates) of the three social protection programmes will be collected for the period from 1880 to 2020 by coding social laws available from the ILO's Legislative Series database and national archives. In addition, other programme-specific data, that are directly related to the de jure coverage and generosity of the respective social protection programmes, will also be coded. The collected data will be entered into the WeSIS database during the project phase.

On the basis of these new data, we secondly investigate the dynamics and national and international determinants of de jure coverage and generosity of the three social protection programmes, using macro-quantitative methods of data analysis. At the national level, we examine in more detail the influences of economic development strategies, crises, political regimes, key actors (especially the labour movement), and state capacity. In addition, we focus on the influence of violent relations such as wars and colonialism, which can be seen as both internal and external explanatory factors. With regard to international interdependencies, the effects of international organizations (such as the ILO or the World Bank) are considered.

Third, in a case study on Bangladesh, the dynamics of the three social protection programmes are explored in depth. In particular, the determinants of the targeting quality of means-tested social pensions and their effect on de facto inclusiveness are examined using a randomised experiment.