We explain what social security is and what systems and institutions deal with it. Also, the first protection systems.
What is social security?
The set of social security is called social security, social protection or social security. government programs, institutions and measures aimed at protecting the economic, physical and social well-being of the population of a country, especially with regard to health, old age, unemployment and disability.
These benefits can be family or individual, consist of credits of money or subsidized services, and are administered in very different ways.
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), social security is “the protection that society provides to its members, through a series of public measures, against economic and social deprivation which, otherwise, would result in their disappearance or sharp reduction in income due to illness, maternity, work accident or work-related illness, unemployment, disability, illness, old age and death.”
Thus, the task of social security is the improvement of the social, economic and human conditions of the population, through mechanisms of solidarity action in which the economically active population collaborates with those unable to work.
Social security systems
There are two essential forms of social security systems, the first public and the second private:
- Public Social Security. Known as Social Security in most countries, it centers the administration of social security funds on the State and grants it the power to manage medical care, social pension, social benefits and other services to the population in need. To do this, the State uses various public institutions dedicated to the matter, whose budget comes from the taxes collected.
- Complementary Social Security. It is a voluntary system financed by individual contributions, thus generating capital managed by private entities that invest it in various stock market and financial operations, obtaining a profit and making the accumulated capital grow.
Social welfare institutions
Each country has its own social security institutions, such as:
- National Social Security Administration (ANSES) in Argentina.
- Comprehensive Social Security System (SSSI) in Colombia.
- Costa Rican Social Security Fund in Costa Rica.
- Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security (IESS) in Ecuador.
- Guatemalan Institute of Social Security in Guatemala.
- Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) in Mexico.
- Venezuelan Institute of Social Security (IVSS) in Venezuela.
- Social Security Bank in Uruguay.
- National Health Service in the United Kingdom.
Many of these institutions serve a specific audience: public employees, civil workers, military employees, etc. It is not unusual for certain associations to have their own social assistance service, apart from or replacing the state one.
Initial protection systems
The history of social security begins together with capitalism and the appearance of proletarian labor which in those times was totally helpless in the face of the occupational risks inherent to the long hours of the time, which were also poorly paid.
Strikes and professional associations were considered a crime, and nothing obliged employers to pay for work accidents, not even for work-related illnesses. To deal with such a panorama of labor exploitation, the first protection systems emerged, which were fundamentally four:
- Private savings under the figure of funds accumulated in a bank so that the worker could pay himself his social security.
- mutualism which consisted of the grouping of workers or members of certain communities to assume, through financial contributions, the necessary help for old or sick members. Devoid of profit purposes, mutual associations served as the basis for the public Social Security of our days.
- private insurance whose origins are as remote as the 15th century, and consisted of commercial contracts in which the insurer undertook to pay the insured or his or her family a capital or compensation, in the event of an event (death, disability, illness, etc.). .). In exchange, the insured had to bear the cost of a monetary premium. This system still exists today.
- Social assistance emerged during the Industrial Revolution, in order to tackle the growing problem of homelessness, it was also a prelude to what social security is today. It was responsible for feeding the poor and its financing could be public or private.
Continue with: Fiscal or tax law
References
- “Social security” on Wikipedia.
- “What is social security?” at Mapfre Foundation.
- “Concrete facts about social security” in the International Labor Organization (ILO).
- “What is social security and why is it so important?” on Vivus.es (Spain).
- “Social Security” in The Encyclopaedia Britannica.
