Social Security in Theory and Practice: An Essay

Dariusz Stańko

Public Economics from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Understanding the role and functions of social policy and social security systems is a key point for a discussion on reforms of the retirement systems. In this essay I describe the subject and range of social policy in the modern welfare state. The work has a descriptive character and aims at presenting basic issues between social security, social policy and social insurance. In the first part I provide a discussion on the welfare state's definition and its structure; then I refer to the notion of social policy and present ideological foundations for social security development. Also, a typology of social policy regimes is presented. The essay also deals with the concept of social security, discusses its definitions, origins and discusses development. I go over the discussion concerning classical assumptions underlying the social security concept and present some recent major challenges that make the review of social security construct necessary. Some terminology and institutional differences between the US and European framework are presented as well. Part three analyses the issue and origins of various risks faced by society. Those social risks are described along with the social risk management issues that are at heart of current approach to social policy. The last part shortly deals with the functions of social security with a focus on social insurance as its main tool.

Keywords: social security; social policy; social insurance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H I (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2004-01-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab, nep-pbe and nep-pub
Note: Type of Document - pdf; prepared on Windows2000; to print on any printer A4; pages: 40. pdf file, 40 pages
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:0401007

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