Publication: Assessing Benefit Portability for International Migrant Workers: A Review of the Austria-Turkey Bilateral Social Security Agreement
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2016-05
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2016-05
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The portability of social benefits is gaining importance given the increasing share of individuals working at least a part of their life outside their home country. Bilateral social security agreements (BSSAs) are considered a crucial approach to establishing portability, but the functionality and effectiveness of these agreements have not yet been investigated; thus important guidance for policymakers in migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries is missing. To shed light on how BSSAs work in practice, this document is part of a series providing information and lessons from studies of portability in four diverse but comparable migration corridors: Austria-Turkey, Germany-Turkey, Belgium-Morocco, and France-Morocco. A summary policy paper draws broader conclusions and offers overarching policy recommendations. This report looks specifically into the working of the Austria-Turkey corridor. Findings suggest that the BSSA between Austria and Turkey is broadly working well, with no main substantive issues in the area of pension portability and few minor substantive issues concerning health care portability and financing. Process issues around information and automation of information exchange are recognized and are beginning to be addressed.
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“Fuchs, Michael; Holzmann, Robert; Pacaci Elitok, Secil; Dale, Pamela. 2016. Assessing Benefit Portability for International Migrant Workers: A Review of the Austria-Turkey Bilateral Social Security Agreement. Social Protection and Labor Discussion Paper;No. 1602. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24733 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Assessing Benefit Portability for International Migrant Workers(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-05)The portability of social benefits is gaining importance given the increasing share of individuals working at least part of their life outside their home country. Bilateral social security agreements (BSSAs) are considered a crucial approach to establishing portability, but the functionality and effectiveness of these agreements have not yet been investigated; thus, important guidance for policy makers in migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries is missing. To shed light on how BSSAs work in practice, this document is part of a series providing information and lessons from studies of portability in four diverse but comparable migration corridors: Austria-Turkey, Germany-Turkey, Belgium-Morocco, and France-Morocco. A summary policy paper draws broader conclusions and offers overarching policy recommendations. This report looks specifically into the working of the Belgium-Morocco corridor. Findings suggest that the BSSA is broadly working well, with no main substantive issues in the area of pension portability, except for the non-portability of the noncontributory top-up pension and issues with widows’ pensions in case of divorce and repudiation, and in health care, the pending introduction of portable health care for retirees with single pensions from the other country. Process issues around information provision in Morocco and automation of information exchange are recognized.Publication Assessing Benefit Portability for International Migrant Workers(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-05)The portability of social benefits is gaining importance given the increasing share of individuals working at least part of their life outside their home country. Bilateral social security agreements (BSSAs) are considered a crucial approach to establishing portability, but the functionality and effectiveness of these agreements have not yet been investigated; thus importance guidance for policy makers in migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries is missing. To shed light on how BSSAs work in practice, this document is part of a series providing information and lessons from studies of portability in four diverse but comparable corridors: Austria-Turkey, Germany-Turkey, Belgium-Morocco, and France-Morocco. A summary policy paper draws broader conclusions and offers overarching policy recommendations. This report looks specifically into the working of the Germany-Turkey corridor. Findings suggest that the BSSA between Germany and Turkey is broadly working well, with no main substantive issues in the area of pension portability and few minor substantive issues concerning health care portability and financing. 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The four corridors studied (Austria-Turkey, Germany-Turkey, Belgium-Morocco, and France-Morocco) were selected to allow for comparison of both similarities and differences in experiences. The evaluation of these corridors’ BSSAs was undertaken against a methodological framework and three selected criteria: fairness for individuals, fiscal fairness for countries, and bureaucratic effectiveness for countries and migrant workers. The results suggest that the investigated BSSAs work and overall deliver reasonably well on individual fairness. The results on fiscal fairness are clouded by conceptual and empirical gaps. Bureaucratic effectiveness would profit from information and communication technology-based exchanges on both corridors once available.Publication Portability of Pension, Health, and Other Social Benefits(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-05)Portability of social benefits across professions and countries is an increasing concern for individuals and policy makers. Lacking or incomplete transfers of acquired social rights are feared to negatively impact individual labor market decisions as well as capacity to address social risks with consequences for economic and social outcomes. The paper gives a fresh and provocative look on the international perspective of the topic that has so far been dominated by social policy lawyers working within the framework of bilateral agreements; the input by economists has been very limited. It offers an analytical framework for portability analysis that suggests separating the risk pooling, (implicit or actual) pre-funding and redistributive elements in the benefit design and explores the proposed alternative approach for pensions and health care benefits. 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