Social security in the USSR

Vic George

International Social Security Review, 1991, vol. 44, issue 4, 47-64

Abstract: Social security systems reflect the political and economic realities of their country. The history of the Soviet social security system lends support to this thesis. Its basic features were drawn during Stalin's forceful drive towards heavy industrialization and they remained pretty much the same over the years despite many changes, often of significant detail. It was a system financed by the state, providing earnings‐related benefits to workers who fulfilled their work obligations and favouring those in the Communist Party, government and industry whose contribution was deemed to be most useful to the state and the economy. The absence of political freedom meant that open criticism of existing provisions was very difficult, while the emphasis of successive governments on defence and space exploration inevitably meant that state funds for social security suffered and with them the level and range of benefits. The collapse of the Soviet Union has resulted in widespread hardship among those relying on benefits and has created a situation where new social security systems are needed to reflect the new political and economic realities.

Date: 1991
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-246X.1991.tb00895.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:intssr:v:44:y:1991:i:4:p:47-64

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Social Security Review from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().