Developing Social Insurance Schemes for Informal and ‘Gig’ Workers

This briefing, which is published under the Global Economy and Finance Programme’s ‘Rebuilding International Economic Cooperation’ project, highlights how the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating economic and social insecurity for more than 2 billion people employed in the informal sector, and adding to global inequality. A radical rethink of the nature of work and social insurance is needed.

Author

Christopher Sabatini

Dr. Christopher Sabatini, is a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, and was formerly a lecturer in the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University. Chris is also on the advisory boards of Harvard University’s LASPAU, the Advisory Committee for Human Rights Watch's Americas Division, and of the Inter-American Foundation. He is also an HFX Fellow at the Halifax International Security Forum. He is a frequent contributor to policy journals and newspapers and appears in the media and on panels on issues related to Latin America and foreign policy. Chris has testified multiple times before the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2015, Chris founded and directed a new research non-profit, Global Americas and edited its news and opinion website. From 2005 to 2014 Chris was senior director of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas (AS/COA) and the founder and editor-in-chief of the hemispheric policy magazine Americas Quarterly (AQ). At the AS/COA, Dr. Sabatini chaired the organization’s rule of law and Cuba working groups. Prior to that, he was director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the National Endowment for Democracy, and a diplomacy fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, working at the US Agency for International Development’s Center for Democracy and Governance. He provides regular interviews for major media outlets, and has a PhD in Government from the University of Virginia.

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Today’s social insurance programmes largely exclude informal and ‘gig economy’ workers. Reforms will need, among other things, to fill this gap by expanding the coverage of voluntary, individualized social insurance to these sectors. Given that fiscal pressures associated with the pandemic will make it difficult for governments to subsidize new schemes sufficiently, there is a role for the G20 and international financial institutions to provide assistance, for example through conditional loans, grants and debt relief.

To read more, download the PDF from Chatham House.

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