Cost of Social Security Basic Tables 1990-93 - Introduction

• the Basic tables series; and
• the Cost of Social Security (Comparative tables)

The last inquiry to have been published is The cost of Social Security: Fourteenth international inquiry, 1987-89, Comparative tables. It can be purchased from the ILO Publication Branch. The results of the Fifteenth international inquiry, 1990-93 will only be published on the INTERNET and no hard copy version will be made available.

The scope of the inquiry:

The scope of the basic inquiry is such as to obtain for each country as complete a picture as possible of the receipts and expenditure on social security, that is, on all the schemes or services which meet the following three criteria:

• (1) the objectives of the system must be to grant curative or preventive medical care, or to maintain income in case of involuntary loss of earnings or of an important part of earnings, or to grant a supplementary income to persons having family responsibilities;
• (2) the system must have been set up by legislation which attributes specified individual rights to, or which imposes specified obligations on, a public, semi-public or autonomous body;
• (3) the system should be administered by a public, semi-public or autonomous body.

Schemes covered by this inquiry:

It follows from the above that the inquiry covers in particular the following schemes:

• (a) compulsory social insurance;
• (b) voluntary social insurance, in so far as it meets criterion (2);
• (c) universal non-contributory schemes;
• (d) provident funds, within the limits of criterion (3);
• (e) employers' liability in respect of employment injury;
• (f) family benefit schemes;
• (g) national health services which are established by legislation and confer on all citizens rights to prescribed services and benefits;
• (h) special schemes or arrangements for public employees (pension, family benefits, sickness, employment injury compensation, etc., irrespective of whether they are contributory or not); (Special schemes for public employees are social security schemes or arrangements for these employees, separate from the general and other specific social security schemes. For the purpose of this inquiry, public employees are those who work in public administration and in public education, health, social and cultural services. Both civilian and military employees are to be included. If employees of public utilities and enterprises are also included in this category, this should be indicated in a footnote.)
• (i) public assistance, within the limits of criterion (1);
• (j) benefits for war victims, within the limits of criterion (1);
• (k) industrial or occupational schemes or schemes and arrangements established by agreements between employers and workers, provided the obligation on the employers has been made compulsory by law and these schemes or arrangements meet the above three criteria (1) (2) and (3).

Schemes excluded from this inquiry:

The following schemes are excluded from this inquiry:

• (a) schemes which have not been set up by legislation, such as individual insurance, non-statutory welfare funds of establishments or occupational organizations, group insurance, mutual benefit societies;
• (b) industrial or occupational pension schemes or provident funds established solely by agreement between workers and employers, provided that no obligation for their establishment is imposed by law on the employer;
• (c) the obligations imposed by law on employers (except in respect of employment injury compensation) to pay family allowances directly to their employees, without the intervention of an equalisation fund, or to pay a part of wages in case of sickness or maternity or in case of departure from the establishment, etc.;
• (d) private assistance and charity.

Contingencies covered:

The contingencies covered by the inquiry are those defined under the different parts of ILO Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102) which are the following:

• Medical Care,
• Sickness Benefit,
• Maternity Benefit,
• Old-Age Benefit,
• Invalidity Benefit,
• Survivors' Benefit,
• Family Benefit,
• Employment Injury Benefit,
• Unemployment Benefit.

The Tables:

Each file contains:

• a table containing the basic social security receipt and expenditure figures as provided by the respective agency to the ILO;
• a table with the social security receipt and expenditure figures as a percentage of GDP;
• a table with the social security receipt and expenditure figures in US dollars.

The source for GDP and exchange rates have been provided by :

• United Nations Statistics Division - National Accounts Section, Economic Statistics Branch.
• The exchange rates used for the conversion of national currency data into US dollars are the average market rates as published by the International Monetary Fund in the International Financial Statistics. Official exchange rates were used only when a free market rate was not available. For non-members of the Fund, the conversion rates used are the averages of United Nations operational rates of exchange. It should be noted that the use of market rates may distort the US dollar income level figures in a number of countries. Therefore, comparability of data both across countries and over time should be dealt with caution.

Though the present inquiry covers the years 1990 to 1993, for certain countries data has been provided for 1989 and for 1994.