Extending Social Protection to Migrant Workers, Refugees, and their Families: Guide for Policymakers and Practitioners

Social security is a basic human right. Yet, 4.1 billion people worldwide have no access to social protection including healthcare. These men, women and children are left unprotected. This includes millions of migrant workers, refugees, and their families. They face legal and practical challenges to access social protection. This has socio-economic repercussions not only for migrants but for all of society, including adverse impact on income security, poverty, inequality and on social integration.

Many options exist to secure and maintain social security rights across borders, and the ILO has brought these policy options and practices together in a global guide that can inform governments, workers’ and employers’ organizations as well as other stakeholders in their efforts to extend social protection to migrant workers and refugees. Providing all people with social protection is ever more urgent as we recover from the deep impacts and inequalities of the COVID-19 crisis.

The Guide is the outcome of long-standing collaboration between the ILO, the International Social Security Association (ISSA) and the International Training Centre of the ILO (ITCILO).