Abstract
This document is the second of a series of country profiles on specific areas of social and labour policies, which the ILO Central and Eastern European Team published.
This country profile is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of the social protection mechanisms of the countries of the region, ranging from social security schemes such as pensions, sickness and maternity benefits, employment injury and unemployment benefits, to health care, family benefits and social assistance. The profiles are intended to cover all statutory social protection benefits, but they do not seek to provide in-depth descriptions of social services, or non-statutory and indirect benefits provided on the basis of private initiative or by the state. These types of benefit are generally too heterogeneous to be described within the constraints of comparative technical papers.
The profiles limit themselves to a presentation of basic facts and the underlying structure of the national system. Although there is always an element of subjective interpretation, as far as possible the authors refrain from comments, judgements and advice. The profiles should serve as an information base and a starting point for the technical work of planners, managers and researchers in the field of social security. They do not set out to solve technical or policy problems within national social protection systems; they are intended as a service for both national and international users. By trying to piece together all the information available on national social protection systems, the authors hope to improve the understanding of such systems and encourage policy-makers and planners to examine the complex web of interactions between specific social protection subsystems in the course of their efforts to reform their national social protection system.
This country profile about Albania reflects the state of the law as of early 1994 and data up to 1993. It comes to the conclusion that Albania took swift and comprehensive action to bring its social protection system into line with the new economic and political environment. Following some preliminary modifications of the previous system (e.g. the introduction of unemployment benefit) it commissioned all income-related social insurance benefits to the Social Security Institute in October 1993. The Institute is governed by a tripartite council supervising four branches of social insurance (short-term benefits, pensions, employment injury benefits and unemployment benefit) providing a comprehensive benefit package. Albania has thus avoided the fragmentation of social insurance with which so many other countries in the region are struggling.
Table of Contents
I. DEMOGRAPHIC, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BACKGROUND
1. Demographic structure
2. Economic and social indicators
II. THE SOCIAL PROTECTION SYSTEM
1. Social security
2. Universal Benefit System
3. The Social Assistance System
III. CONCLUSION
SOURCES AND CONTACTS
STATISTICAL APPENDIX
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