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Old Age Security in Asia and the Pacific: Reflections on a Rights-based Framework |
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Marius Olivier |
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Major demographic changes, with reference to decreasing fertility and mortality rates, an exponential rise in the number and percentage of old people, and important family cycle changes have a dramatic impact on the extension of social security protection to the aged. The existing arrangements are, for a number of reasons, insufficient, as they tend to lay an emphasis on lumpsum payments, treat public servants and private sector employees unequally, and make almost no provision for safety net or social assistance arrangements. It is argued that an appropriate human rights framework may go a long way towards strengthening and directing the extension of social protection to old people in the Asian and Pacific countries. This could be enhanced by a constitutional framework underpinning a human rights approach to old age security, a supporting statutory framework, and the acknowledgement of the important role of relevant international and regional standards, which should result in the formal ratification of particular relevant instruments (such as the relevant ILO Conventions)
Some legal and policy consequences flow from this. In the area of discrimination, it is argued that there is a need to align public employee and private sector employee retirement arrangements, to develop appropriate cross-country co-ordination arrangements to deal with the unequal treatment of migrant workers in social security, and to ensure coverage extension to those presently excluded. It is, furthermore, necessary to create a welfare regime, which would reflect, incorporate and combine family and community provision, personal provision, public and private measures arranged for by the State and, when necessary, appropriate social assistance measures. Finally, it is argued that there is a serious need to re-conceptualize social security in the Asian and Pacific context, in order to streamline the extension of meaningful retirement coverage to the people, in particular old people, in this region. |
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