Political attitudes and participation among young Arab workers:a comparison of formal and informal workers in five Arab countries

Informal employment has long been a feature of Arab economies and as such, better understanding of the political participation of informal workers is important, especially given their involvement in social uprisings, such as during the Arab Spring in 2011. This paper tests for the first time the impact of informality of labour on political participation in five Arab countries: Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia. By using the European Union’s 2015–2016 SAHWA survey and logistic regression models, we are able to show evidence of an association between political participation and informality through the negative impact of the latter on four indicators of political participation: affiliation to political parties/movements; frequency of participation in political activities; frequency of speaking about politics; and voting in elections. Furthermore, the paper confirms that age, gender and education are significant predictors of political participation in the countries analysed. We argue that these findings have relevant policy implications

Le systeme algerien de protection sociale : entre bismarckien et beveridgien

Les systèmes de protection sociale tels qu’ils sont connus aujourd’hui sont issus de l’évolution des systèmes bismarckien et beveridgien. Le premier basé sur le principe d’assurance a vu le jour en Allemagne en 1883, le second basé sur le principe d’assistance a été créé par Beveridge en Grande Bretagne en 1941. Ce dernier était financé principalement par l’impôt et avait comme objectif de couvrir la plus grande partie de la population contre les risques sociaux. Nous proposons dans notre travail de caractériser le système algérien de protection sociale à partir de ces deux types de systèmes. En Algérie, le système de sécurité sociale a été fondé en 1949 sur le principe de l’assurance. L'accès au système était destiné aux travailleurs en contre partie de prélèvements sur leurs salaires. Le système était corporatiste-conservateur (Esping Anderson, 1990) de doctrine bismarckienne. Il a vu plusieurs réformes de l’indépendance à nos jours. Des lois visant à étendre la couverture sociale à une plus large partie de la population ont été introduites dans le système. Pour atteindre cet objectif, les pouvoirs publics ont créé d’autres composantes dans le système de protection sociale à côté du système d’assurance en place depuis 1949. Cela donna un changement de nature du système algérien de protection sociale. Dans ce travail nous allons étudier le système algérien de protection sociale dans sa globalité et essayer de lui accorder selon son architecture institutio- nnelle actuelle un cadre doctrinal cohérent (les prestations résiduelles et la primauté accordée au marché et à la lutte contre la pauvreté ; les assurances sociales et la protection des catégories professionnelles ; les prestations universelles et la recherche de l’égalité). Cette grille de lecture permet d’identifier les traits d’un système national dans son ensemble et dégager les tendances lourdes de son évolution. Celles-ci ne peuvent être dégagées par des analyses sectorielles (maladie, vieillesse …etc.). Par ailleurs, sur le plan économique, le passage de l’économie planifiée à l’économie de marché et la difficulté pour l’Etat d’atteindre le plein emploi ont permis l’apparition de certaines formes d’activités informelles sur le marché du travail. 41,8% de la population occupée ne sont pas affiliés à la sécurité sociale (ONS1, 2014). Cette population ne s’acquitte pas de ses cotisations sociales, mais elle profite de la gratuité des soins d’où la partie universaliste du système algérien de protection sociale. Nous exploiterons les données de la comptabilité nationale pour évaluer les recettes du système de protection sociale en provenance du marché du travail (cotisations des travailleurs) et les recettes en provenance du budget de l’Etat. L’évolution de ces agrégats pourrait constituer un indicateur de la typologie du système algérien de protection sociale.Mots clés : Algérie, Protection sociale, Système Bismarckien, Système Beveridgien, Recettes de la sécurité sociale, Budget social de l’Etat

Le système algérien de protection sociale : entre Bismarckien et Beveridgien

Social security systems are often treated according to their epistemology. The bismarckian and beverdgian systems could be the origin of all social protection systems. The firs was created by Bismark at 1883 in Germany, it was based on the insurance principal. The beverigian system was instituted by the lord Beveridge in Great Britain on 1941, it was financed by taxes, its aim was to extend social coverage to the biggest part of population. Otherwise, We can distinguish between three cluster of social protection systems according intervention degrees of different actors (State, market and family). The first cluster is the “liberal” welfare state, characterized by means-tested assistance, modest universal transfers, and modest social-insurance plans. This welfare state provides very limited social rights. The second cluster is the “corporatist” type. In this type the focus is on preserving status differentials. Rights are therefore attached to status. The state may play a role in de-commodification, but it has a very limited role in redistribution. Corporatist regimes are typically shaped by the church, and as such have a conservative orientation and an ideological commitment to the family. The third cluster is the “universalist” welfare state, in which welfare state benefits are extended to the middle class in an attempt to avoid a dualism between state and market. How about the Algerian social protection system? It was been created on 1949, in the first years of its creation the system was contributive. The Algerian social protection system has undergone several reforms since independence. Some laws have been established to extend coverage to higher part of population. This extending was carried out through ‘’beverdgian’’ principle. It means to provide benefit to the poor population without counterpart of contribution. This gives deficit of the treasury of the social security funds. Otherwise, evolution in Algerian macroeconomic context, the passage form planned economy to the open market economy and the disability for the government to reach full employment have given some new forms of informal employment. On 2011, 46% of economically active population hasn’t any social coverage (Office National des Statistiques). These workers don’t pay their social contribution but can get benefit like entitled of an insured or thanks to free health care. We will try in this paper to analyse the social security system in parallel with labor market, we emphasize the public intervention on social security system, the degree of this intervention to explain the general trend of evolution that undergone the Algerian social security sytem.We use national account data to compare the potential revenue could coming from the labor market with the actual revenue collected by social security funds. This comparison shows some contribution shortfall for the social security funds. However, the second section of this paper exposes the evolution of social coverage rate. The low demand of social security by the workers seem to be widespread in all the sectors, and a lot off clusters of profession, manly self workers and employers. It could be the result of some behaviors, like risk taking, high discount rate of the future or the individualistic behavior of the employers that don’t entitle their employees to social security (Luttmer et al, 2012. Brown et al, 2013; Friedman, 1973, Murphy 2011). Face to this, the state continue to subsidies the social security system and providing benefits to poorer categories of population using his social budget. The amount of this last is increasing this last years (ONS) accentuating the beverdgian principle. This kind of social protection system work under demographic and financial pressure. The problem is that the social budget is financed by oil taxes (exhaustible resource), hence, the sustainability of the Algerian social security system

Le système algérien de protection sociale : entre Bismarckien et Beveridgien

Social security systems are often treated according to their epistemology. The bismarckian and beverdgian systems could be the origin of all social protection systems. The firs was created by Bismark at 1883 in Germany, it was based on the insurance principal. The beverigian system was instituted by the lord Beveridge in Great Britain on 1941, it was financed by taxes, its aim was to extend social coverage to the biggest part of population. Otherwise, We can distinguish between three cluster of social protection systems according intervention degrees of different actors (State, market and family). The first cluster is the “liberal” welfare state, characterized by means-tested assistance, modest universal transfers, and modest social-insurance plans. This welfare state provides very limited social rights. The second cluster is the “corporatist” type. In this type the focus is on preserving status differentials. Rights are therefore attached to status. The state may play a role in de-commodification, but it has a very limited role in redistribution. Corporatist regimes are typically shaped by the church, and as such have a conservative orientation and an ideological commitment to the family. The third cluster is the “universalist” welfare state, in which welfare state benefits are extended to the middle class in an attempt to avoid a dualism between state and market. How about the Algerian social protection system? It was been created on 1949, in the first years of its creation the system was contributive. The Algerian social protection system has undergone several reforms since independence. Some laws have been established to extend coverage to higher part of population. This extending was carried out through ‘’beverdgian’’ principle. It means to provide benefit to the poor population without counterpart of contribution. This gives deficit of the treasury of the social security funds. Otherwise, evolution in Algerian macroeconomic context, the passage form planned economy to the open market economy and the disability for the government to reach full employment have given some new forms of informal employment. On 2011, 46% of economically active population hasn’t any social coverage (Office National des Statistiques). These workers don’t pay their social contribution but can get benefit like entitled of an insured or thanks to free health care. We will try in this paper to analyse the social security system in parallel with labor market, we emphasize the public intervention on social security system, the degree of this intervention to explain the general trend of evolution that undergone the Algerian social security sytem.We use national account data to compare the potential revenue could coming from the labor market with the actual revenue collected by social security funds. This comparison shows some contribution shortfall for the social security funds. However, the second section of this paper exposes the evolution of social coverage rate. The low demand of social security by the workers seem to be widespread in all the sectors, and a lot off clusters of profession, manly self workers and employers. It could be the result of some behaviors, like risk taking, high discount rate of the future or the individualistic behavior of the employers that don’t entitle their employees to social security (Luttmer et al, 2012. Brown et al, 2013; Friedman, 1973, Murphy 2011). Face to this, the state continue to subsidies the social security system and providing benefits to poorer categories of population using his social budget. The amount of this last is increasing this last years (ONS) accentuating the beverdgian principle. This kind of social protection system work under demographic and financial pressure. The problem is that the social budget is financed by oil taxes (exhaustible resource), hence, the sustainability of the Algerian social security system

The Importance of Behavioural Factors for Pension Savings Decisions – Cross-Country Evidence

In this study, we challenge the problem of inadequate voluntary pension savings by exploring the micro-dataset of the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS) for three countries: Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. The existing empirical literature usually focuses on the role of socio-demographic factors to understand this phenomenon, and theoretical studies additionally highlight the role of behavioural factors. However, empirical studies in this field are extremely scarce. The use of the LWS data enables us to fill this research gap. Separately for each country, we verify the role of individuals' risk attitudes and intertemporal choices in the demand for voluntary pension savings. To make the results more robust, we add a set of socio-demographic control variables to our regressions. Our findings clearly reveal that being more risk averse and being less forward looking negatively affect people's propensity to save for retirement. Furthermore, we confirm that age, gender and education are significant predictors of pension demand in each of the analysed countries. We argue that these conclusions have practical meaning to improve regulatory frameworks

Youth informal employment in Arab States exclusion and exit

International audienceInformal employment is one of the critical issues surrounding labour market debate in the Arab region. The latest data shows that 85% of youth and 61% of adult workers are in informal employment in Arab states (ILO, 2020). The aim of this study is to elaborate the profiles of workers who choose informality and those who are excluded from formal employment and modern labour market. Using the SAHWA survey and discrete choice models, this article confirms the heterogeneity of the informal labour market in five Arab countries; namely, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia. Furthermore, this article highlights the profiles of workers who are more likely to voluntarily choose informality. Considering those profiles, this article will finally propose policy recommendations in order to extend social security to all informal workers, and thus achieve one of the Sustainable Development Goals on decent work (SDG8)

Political Attitudes and Participation among Young Arab Workers: A Comparison of Formal and Informal Workers in Five Arab Countries

Informal employment has long been a feature of Arab economies and as such, better understanding of the political participation of informal workers is important, especially given their involvement in social uprisings, such as during the Arab Spring in 2011. This paper tests for the first time the impact of informality of labour on political participation in five Arab countries: Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia. By using the European Union’s 2015–2016 SAHWA survey and logistic regression models, we are able to show evidence of an association between political participation and informality through the negative impact of the latter on four indicators of political participation: affiliation to political parties/movements; frequency of participation in political activities; frequency of speaking about politics; and voting in elections. Furthermore, the paper confirms that age, gender and education are significant predictors of political participation in the countries analysed. We argue that these findings have relevant policy implications

Social Security Enrollment as an Indicator of State Fragility and Legitimacy: A Field Experiment in Maghreb Countries

State legitimacy and effectiveness can be observed in the state’s approach to delivering welfare to citizens, thus mitigating social grievances and avoiding conflicts. Social security systems in the Maghreb countries are relatively similar in their architecture and aim to provide social insurance to all the workers in the labor market. However, they suffer from the same main problem: a low rate of enrollment of workers. Many workers (employees and self-employed) work informally without any social security coverage. The issue of whether informal jobs are chosen voluntarily by workers or as a strategy of last resort is controversial. Many authors recognize that the informal sector is heterogeneous and assume that it is made up of (1) workers who voluntarily choose it, and (2) others who are pushed into it because of entry barriers to the formal sector. The former assumption tells us much about state legitimacy/attractiveness, and the latter is used to inform state effectiveness in delivering welfare. Using the Sahwa survey and discrete choice models, this article confirms the heterogeneity of the informal labor market in three Maghreb countries: Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. Furthermore, this article highlights the profiles of workers who voluntarily choose informality, an aspect that is missing from previous studies. Finally, this article proposes policy recommendations in order to extend social security to informal workers and to include them in the formal labor market