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A core problem with respect to social security is the global coverage gap. According to ILO estimates, the vast majority of about 80 per cent of the global population have little or no access to formal social security. They rely on families, kinship groups or communities to secure their standard of living. Among these 80 per cent, 20 per cent live in abject poverty – the cruellest form of insecurity.

Having said that, it equally needs to be mentioned that virtually all countries in the world have some form of social security provision, as can be seen in the graph below. The problem is that these schemes either only cover few or single contingencies i.e. they provide for pensions but not unemployment benefits and secondly, that they entail provisions which make them inaccessible for parts of the work force. A typical example could be a period in which contribution to the scheme is compulsory in order to receive the (full) benefit, or that schemes only cover enterprises above a certain size (e.g. 5,10, or 20 employees). Understood in this sense, the problem of a lack of coverage is not unknown in the industrialised countries of the Global North either (it might i.e. be difficult for certain groups to fulfil the conditions upon which a full pension is paid), but it is of greatest relevance in the countries with the low incomes.

Figure 1. Existence of a statutory programme (or a limited provision) for each branch of social security | Percentage of countries.

In the following, we will illustrate the coverage gap in more detail using the example of social security coverage for the unemployed.

• Example