Contenu du sommaire : Protection sociale dans les pays en émergence

Reform and extending social protection systems in the emerging countries in Latin America – historical institutional legacies vs. new approaches. During their transition towards a market economy, emerging Latin American countries worked on restructuring their corporatist social welfare systems inherited from the past. This period was marked by controversy – as much over both the way problems were formulated as the most appropriate policies to be adopted. International Epistemic communities, supported by large organizations such as the World Bank, played a key role in putting public policy questions high on the agenda. The analysis of these developments led many authors to develop a theory of policy convergence for similar economic contexts or under the influence of large international organizations. Despite this, the social welfare reforms that were introduced in the different Latin American countries vary greatly. By comparing the pension system reform in Mexico and Brazil in particular and then the implementation of two major programmes aimed at eradicating poverty in these countries (Progresa and Bolsa Família), this article will show how historic institutional legacies can impact neo-liberal ideas.

The Bolsa Família in action – focus on two local variations of the programme and the consequences for women`/titrebThis article examines findings of qualitative research carried out between 2009 and 2012 on the implementation of the Bolsa Família programme. Two very different Brazilian cities were selected for this study – Fortaleza in the northeast of the country and Florianópolis in the south. Interviews were conducted with both the managers of this programme and its beneficiaries and the findings led to a reconsideration of the practical implementation of the Bolsa Família at the local level. We will describe – from a feminist perspective – how the same national programme was implemented in different ways depending on the local context and policy. Whereas in one of the cities, we observed an increase in « feminist » – driven measures intended for female beneficiaries in order to supplement their current financial aid, this type of approach was non-existent in the other city. The municipal policy of the two cities in question are not too far removed from each other in terms of their overall approach – namely, targeting beneficiaries, providing cash transfer programs for the poorest and conditionality of aid. However, the achievements of the Bolsa Família vary significantly at the local level.

A turning point in the welfare system reform in the Philippines – the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. In 2006, at a time where the fight against poverty was centralised at the international level, the government of the Philippines and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in particular introduced an extensive « social welfare » reform program. This article will analyse these social policy reforms through the study of two milestones in the Philippines : the adoption of an « official » definition of « social welfare » and the inclusion in the agenda of a Conditional cash transfers (CCT) program. It will specifically focus on the transnational rationale that drove the Philippine government to adopt a « social welfare » approach, broadly inspired by the views on social development prevailing at the time.

The effectiveness and the scope of the Algerian social welfare systems concerning pensions. Algeria's social welfare system has played a key role in alleviating the social consequences of the structural adjustment program. However, despite considerable financial measures introduced over the last decades, the population at large and the elderly in particular still receive inadequate coverage. This calls into question the effectiveness of Algeria's social welfare policy. In this article, we shall attempt to assess its effectiveness through the study of the coverage level of the older population and of the pensioners' standard of living. For the elderly, the level of social coverage has created inequalities among those who are entitled to social welfare and those who are not. But this is not all – there is further inequality among pensioners receiving coverage due to the considerable differences in the amounts they receive. Using a sample of 349,681 pensioners born between 1945 and 1950, these discrepancies have been analysed using the Lorenz curve and certain dispersion measures. Findings demonstrate that the Algerian pension system provides limited coverage to the population, resulting in a low standard of living for pensioners – this is what undermines its efficiency.

New types of social welfare – social enterprises and medical cooperatives in South Korea. South Korea – driven by its dynamic civil society – has been working on the development of its state welfare system since joining the OECD in 1996 and the Asian financial crisis at the end of the 90s. This article will show that with these developments, the country has seen the emergence of new partnership arrangements between national and local governments and private stakeholders, resulting in a new type of welfare-mix. Indeed, over the last 15 years, various governmental measures have been introduced both at the local and the national level with the aim of supporting the development of organisations such as social enterprises and new cooperatives. On an even broader scale, these measures are intended to foster what has now become known as the “social economy”. This burgeoning social economy is becoming a key player in social welfare in South Korea, advocating public initiatives and schemes and also acting as a service provider. Initially created to directly address the question of unemployment, these organisations have gradually extended their scope of action to include other social issues and are attracting growing recognition and interest.

The New Individual Account Pension Reforms in Latin America. Latin America led the world in introducing individual retirement accounts intended to complement or replace defined benefit state-sponsored, pay-as-you-go systems. After Chile implemented the first system in 1981, a number of other Latin American countries incorporated privately managed individual accounts as part of their retirement income systems beginning in the 1990s. This article examines the subsequent « reform of the reform » of these pension systems, with a focus on the recent overhaul of the Chilean system. The authors analyze key elements of pension reform in the region relating to individual accounts : system coverage, fees, competition, investment, the impact of gender on benefits, and payouts.

The monotribut regime in Argentina (1998-2013) – a move towards protecting casual labour. Since the 1990s casual workers in Argentina – defined as those who do not have access to social coverage – account for between 30% and 40% of the active population. The hardest hit are domestic workers (85%), rural workers (75%) and self-employed or independent workers (60%). The monotribut system is an innovative measure aimed at integrating low-income workers (salaried or independent) into the tax and social welfare system. It also aims at simplifying the registration process for these workers who have limited contributive capacity. This will be done by introducing a new tax combining income tax and Social Security charges (illness and pension). This article will analyse the consequences of this monotribut regime – as an institutional innovation – on the welfare system as a whole. What innovation does this new system bring compared to the current Bismarkian model ? Does this innovation call the structure of the general system into question ? If this is the case, is it a sign of a transition towards a new system ? Or is it simply a transformation to the current one ?

Vegetable gardening as a means of supporting social integration in France and the United States. A renaissance for agriculture via social work ? At the beginning of the 1990s, community gardens were set up to jointly serve the aims of social work (or policies to combat social exclusion) and agriculture (generally organic and vegetable production). But in reality what was done in terms of setting up work cooperatives ? How has social assistance taken the environmental dimension into account ? What skills are required of supervisory staff ? This article will attempt to understand what agriculture can do for social work and also what social work can do for agriculture. Using both an ethnographical and comparative approach – participative observation with semi-guided interviews and comparison of structures (one in France and the other in the United States) respectively, we will show that – depending on the contexts – the inclusion of agricultural and environmental perspectives in the integration process can “legitimise” hybrid types of skills and atypical career paths. In these cases, accentuating the social role of sustainable agriculture can lead to the emergence of new professional profiles.