This document discusses how to reform social insurance programs to better protect workers while promoting job creation. It recommends: 1) Integrating fragmented social insurance programs into a single unified system to improve coverage. 2) Giving individuals more choice over their benefit packages to reduce labor market distortions. 3) Making redistribution more targeted and financed through general revenues rather than payroll taxes to lower costs for firms. 4) Using incentives to encourage voluntary enrollment in social insurance, especially in large informal sectors.

1. How to Protect Workers while Creating Good Jobs
Social Insurance and Labor Markets
David A. Robalino (World Bank and IZA)

2. Social Insurance and
Labor Markets: how to
Protect Workers while
Creating Good Jobs
Markus Frolich
David Kaplan
Carmen Pages
Jamele Rigolini
David Robalino
Oxfor Univesity Press

3. Old-age pensions
Health Insurance
Unemployment
insurance
Disability pensions
Life insurance
Working conditions
Minimum wages

4. Why do we care?

5. Why do we care?
• Myopia:
Lack or biased information
Limited cognitive skills
Psychological problems
• Imperfections in labor markets
• Imperfections in capital markets
• Imperfection in insurance markets (adverse selection)

6. What are the problems?
• Low coverage
• Design problems that distort labor markets:
Lower participation rates
Lower employment levels
Higher informality

7. COVERAGE

9. Coverage is discontinuous
Argentina
Chile
Uruguay
Contribution Density (% of Active Life)
0 22.5 45 67.5 90
Lowest quintile Highest quintile

10. Why ?

11. Why ?
• Many are self-employed
• Unemployment
• Labor mobility
• Low income individuals can't afford contributions
• Low productivity firms can't afford pay-roll taxes
• Evasion ?

12. Unemployment is an issue
VEN
URU
PER
PAR
PAN
NIC
HON
GUA
SLV
ECU
DOM
CRC
COL
CHI
BRA
BOL
ARG
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Inflow rates (% employed)
Unemploymentduration(months)
Combinations
consistent with a
5% unemployment
rate.

13. Unemployment risks are
higher in the informal sector...
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
A
pr-02A
ug-02D
ec-02A
pr-03A
ug-03D
ec-03A
pr-04A
ug-04D
ec-04A
pr-05A
ug-05D
ec-05A
pr-06A
ug-06D
ec-06A
pr-07
ProbabilityofUnemployment(%).
Informal W (3.8%)
Informal SE (2.85%)
Informal E (1.05%)
Formal W (1.11%)
Brazil

14. There is also considerable
mobility between jobs
Annual
Transition Rates
Self-employed Informal Formal
Self-employed -- 0.53 0.35
Informal 0.29 -- 0.47
Formal 0.25 0.43 --
Mexico

15. Value added per worker
Firms ranking
Minimum cost of labor
Excluded
MOROCCO
Tax-wedge reduces formal employment
(0.1-0.5 elasticity).... low productivity firms self-select in the
informal sector

16. What has been the
solution?

17. What has been the
solution?
• Creating specific programs for groups which
are not covered...
• ... often, non-contributory

18. Programs have been effective in expanding
coverage, but bring other problems...
0
25
50
75
100
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5
Contributory Non-contributory
Pension Coverage in Bolivia

19. LABOR MARKET
DISTORTIONS

20. How the SI system
affects outcomes
TAXES
SUBSIDIES
Explicit
Implicit
Explicit
Pay-roll
Non-contributory
insurance
Contributions not
linked to benefits
Behaviors
of employers and
workers
How do SI programs affect labor markets ?
Workers do not value
benefits "in full"

21. Example of implicit
redistribution in UB programsBalanceintheindividualaccount(%ofwage)
-150
-112.5
-75
-37.5
0
37.5
75
Months
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
4% contribution rate
50% replacement
rate during 3
months

22. Imagine...
PLAN MEMBERS
LOW RISK
HIGH RISK
Unemployment rate = 3%
Duration = 3 months
REPLACEMENT RATE = 60%
CONTRIBUTION RATE = 4%
Unemployment rate = 10%

23. 4 meses
de salario
1.8 meses
1.8 meses
1 mes de
salario
100 months of contributions
Three months
of benefits
LOW RISK
HIGH RISK

24. Implicit taxes can be
significant...

25. What is the evidence?
Employmentlevel
90
100
110
120
Tax wedge
0.1 0.2 0.3

26. Tax-wedge
The difference between the total cost of labor and take-
home pay
Tax Wedge = W . (1+taxE) - W. (1-taxW) - Value SS benefits
W: wage
taxE: taxes paid by employer (social security contributions)
taxW: taxes paid by workers

27. What is the evidence?
Non-contributory programs provide
incentives for informal work (Mexico and
Colombia)
8-20% of net
formal
employment
creation
Workers valuation of mandatory
benefits (health care) affects the choice
between formal and informal jobs
(Uruguay)
Transfers (social pensions) can
reduce formal employment and
participation (Chile)
- 4.1% formal participation
of workers older than 40
Higher propensity of women
with children to drop out of
labor market
-5 % among
plan members
with no
children

28. Mandatory savings rates and default portfolios do not account for
different “preferences” and observable characteristics that matter
(e.g., labor income).
Chile
Default
Average

29. Unemployment insurance can affect unemployment rates and the
share of formal, informal and self-employment (Brazil)
Desempleo
Empleo Fomal
Empleo Informal
Cuenta Propia
-0.05 -0.038 -0.025 -0.013 0 0.013

30. Policy Framework to
Guide Reforms

31. Recommendations at
five levels
• Integration of SI programs
• Bundle and level of SI benefits
• Redistribution
• Financing and tax-wedges
• Incentives for enrollment

32. Integrate programs
• Have one SI system open to all workers
• This can be done by "shutting-down" schemes
and re-enrolling workers ...
• ... or closing schemes to new entrants, who
would enroll in a national scheme

33. Review the bundle of SI
benefits
• Focus on pensions (old-age, disability,
survivorship) health insurance, and
unemployment insurance
• Give more choice to individuals in defining the
level of benefits:
Define a basic bundle of benefits as a default
"Nudge" individuals to update their defaults and provide
information/guidance

34. Make redistribution
explicit and well targeted
• Link contributions (including from employers) to benefits
• Identify the share of the cost of the bundle of SI benefits
that will be subsidized at each level of income (could be
universal):
Subsidies can match the contributions or top-up the
benefits of plan members...
... there has to be a "smooth" decline in the subsidy
based on income
Income can be inferred through proxy means tests (PMT)

35. Income Level
Benefit
Subsidies
Voluntary contributions

36. Income Level
Benefit
Subsidies
Contributions
Voluntary contributions

37. Income Level
Benefit
Subsidies
Voluntary contributions

38. Reduce tax-wedges
• Having more individual choice in defining the bundle
of SI benefits can help...
• Also linking contributions to benefits and financing
redistribution through general revenues:
Reallocate expenditures (e.g., subsidy reform)
And/or increase other taxes (e.g., consumption, property, wealth)
• Consider exemptions for firms below a given level of
productivity

39. Incentives to enroll
• With large informal sectors it is not possible to enforce enrollment... it
has to be voluntary
• Administrative processes must be simple
• Rely on "aggregators" that operate in small villages and markets, as
well as through cooperatives
• Rely on mobile technology
• Run information campaigns
• Provide financial incentives:
Those who enroll are eligible for a minimum level of benefits and/or matching
contributions

40. Final remarks
• There are important problems
with coverage, labor markets,
and equity
• Part of the solution is to
integrate programs, have more
choice, and rethink
redistributive arrangements
• The political economy of reform
is not easy
• But making redistributive
arrangements explicit can help