Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate how communication within the Swedish sickness insurance system differs between cases of sick leave and how this may affect clients' cases.
...Materials and methods: This was a document study using 30 client files from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SIA). The clients included had been on a work ability evaluation during their sick leave spell and were aged 32-64 years. The material was analyzed using qualitative document analysis.
Results: The results show different approaches to communication, characterized by emotional argumentation, matter-of-fact driven argumentation and information exchange, which have diverse success in affecting official decisions. Arguments characterized by emotions such as frustration or desperation are to a larger extent neglected by the authorities compared to those characterized by a matter-of-fact driven approach and referring to regulations and medical certificates.
Conclusion: There are differences regarding how clients and stakeholders communicate the clients' needs and pre-requisites, and how this affects official decisions. Further research must be carried out in order to establish social insurance literacy, initially for individuals on sick leave within the sickness insurance system, and whether there are differences between diverse groups that could lead to injustices.
Implications for rehabilitation
Within a social insurance context, professionals need to provide clients with adequate and individually adapted information in order for procedures to be perceived as comprehensible and manageable by the clients.
The support from stakeholders such as the treating physician and/or employer can affect clients' sick-leave process.
Clients' treating medical professionals can contribute to ensuring that clients rights are met by communicating the clients' needs to other stakeholders in a formal way.
Many scholars attribute the slowdown of economic growth to population aging and its negative impact on the size of the labor force. Meanwhile, government programs targeting an aging society can ...generate work disincentives. This paper studies the unintended labor market effects of Long-term Care Insurance (LTCI) among people of older age by exploiting the launch of the LTCI program in China. We find that policy-covered older adults decreased labor market engagement, significantly increasing the probability of exiting the labor market completely or not working full-time. We also document more substantial effects among those with low income, poor health, advanced age, and few children. The forgone wages of older adults account for >0.25% of GDP. These findings have policy implications for countries “growing old before getting rich.”
•This paper estimates the impact of Chinese Long-term Care Insurance on the labor participation of nondisabled older people.•LTCI had exited 8.94% of older workers from the labor force and decreased their probability of full-time work by 11.17%.•More substantial effects are found among those with low income, poor health, advanced age, and few children.•The forgone wages of older adults account for >0.25% of GDP.
The presented study raises the issue of contribution payers in the field of social insurance, in particular based on the Covid-19 pandemic. Searching for ways of supporting was determined by the ...deterioration of the financial condition of entrepreneurs as payers of contributions. In 2020, there were no instruments or mechanisms to support entrepreneurs in a lockdown situation, which implied the need to build such tools and the legal environment for SMEs practically from the beginning. The Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) was entrusted with the role of a stabilizer, consisting in servicing entrepreneurs as part of subsequent editions of the Anti-Crisis Shield. During the announcement of the COVID-19 pandemic, ZUS used the following forms of support for contribution payers: exemption from the obligation to pay contributions, postponement of the payment of contributions and payment of contributions in installments. The research question concerned the enforcement of the law and respect for the basic rights of entrepreneurs in the scope of the support used. In order to solve the research task legal interpretation were used in the work. The author’s considerations lead to the conclusion that forms of support used in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic turned out to be effective and may be used in the future in emergency situations. An important science contribution of the article results from the combination of the selected legal and economic aspects.
Social Insurance Contributions exert a liquidity constraint on firms and hence influence the performance of firms. By exploiting the enforcement of China's Social Insurance Law (SIL) in 2011 as a ...quasi-natural experiment, this paper studies the impact of social insurance contributions on the performance of enterprises through a difference-in-differences method. We find that SIL negatively affects the performance of firms, and this effect is more pronounced in firms with weaker cost-shifting capacity. Mechanism tests prove the liquidity constraints channel through the perspective of the firm's cash flow, accounts payable, investment-cash flow sensitivity, and scale of operations. Our findings demonstrate that firms cannot fully mitigate the negative impact brought by Social Insurance Contributions.
Objective: To investigate the perception of antibiotics, the frequency of inappropriate antibiotic use, and the factors that lead to inappropriate antibiotic use by parents who apply to primary ...healthcare organizations. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 973 parents who applied to primary healthcare centers. We analyzed basic concepts related to antibiotics prescribed for their children, antibiotic administration, and antibiotic resistance, as well as parents′ knowledge and attitudes towards antibiotic use, and their experiences, practices, and perceptions related to purchasing antibiotics without prescription. Results: In the past one year, 78.9% of the parents gave antibiotics to their children at least once, and 39.1% gave antibiotics three or more times. Some of the participants (7.1%) reported having forced the physician to prescribe antibiotics and purchased antibiotics without a prescription (13.2%). The knowledge about antibiotics and awareness about antibiotic resistance were found to be more frequent; among parents who had university degrees, higher income levels, two or fewer children, social insurance and negative behaviours were lower in those who received information about antibiotics from healthcare professionals. The probability of taking antibiotics without prescription was lower in that of with higher income level (OR 0.460; 95% CI 0.219-0.965), and the probability of forcing antibiotic prescription was higher in those with 3 or more children (OR 6.94; 95% CI 2.37-20.26). The score obtained from the awareness of antibiotic resistance sub-dimension was found to negatively affect the behavior of forcing antibiotic prescription (OR 0.852; 95% CI 0.732-0.993) but the score obtained from the behaviour sub-dimension was positively affect this behaviour (OR 1.136; 95% CI 1.011-1.276). Conclusions: Inappropriate antibiotic use appears to be a problem with negative perception, lack of knowledge and socioeconomic dimension. Studies should be conducted to increase antibiotic knowledge in parents and to expand the scope of social insurance.
As jobs disappear and wages flatline, paid work is an increasingly fragile basis for dignified life. This predicament, deepened by the COVID-19 pandemic, is sparking urgent debates about alternatives ...such as a universal basic income (UBI). In this incisive new book, Hein Marais casts the debate about a UBI in the wider context of the dispossessing pressures of capitalism and the turmoil of global warming, pandemics and social upheaval. Marais surveys the meaning, history and appeal of a UBI before even-handedly weighing the case for and against it. The book explores the vexing questions a UBI raises about the relationship of paid work to social rights, about prevailing notions of entitlement and dependency, and about the role of the state in contemporary capitalism. Along with cost estimates for different versions of a basic income in South Africa, it discusses financing options and lays out the social, economic and political implications. Highly topical and distinctive in its approach, In the Balance: The Case for a Universal Basic Income in South Africa and Beyond is the most rounded and up-to-date examination yet of the need and prospects for a UBI in a global South setting such as South Africa.
This paper investigates the effects of survivor benefits (SB) on the labour supply of widows. Using rich administrative data on the Dutch population and a reform that considerably restricted ...eligibility to SB, we identify the causal effect of SB on labour supply. Using a regression discontinuity design strategy based on the cohort-based implementation of the reform, we show that labour income after spousal death increased significantly following the reform (+110 euros, +23%). The effects are driven by changes in labour force participation and hours worked by widows. We also find evidence of program substitution, with widows relying more on disability, unemployment and welfare benefits as a result of the reform. This increase in alternative benefits further limits the reduction in total income caused by the reform by an average of 60 euros. Regarding the heterogeneity of the labour supply response, we find that widows with a relatively higher need for self-insurance increase their labour supply relatively more.
•Restricting access to Survivor benefits increases widows’ labour income.•In the Netherlands, it rises to 110 euros (+23%) three years after spousal death.•The effects are driven by changes in labour force participation and hours worked.•Widows also rely more on disability, unemployment and welfare benefits.•Widows with a higher need for self-insurance increase their labour supply more.
Abstract The postwar welfare state provides social insurance against economic, health, and related risks in an uncertain world. Because everyone can envision themselves to be among the unfortunate, ...social insurance fuses self-interest and solidarism in a normative principle Friedman (2020) calls probabilistic justice. But there is a competing principle of status defense, where the aim is to erect boundaries between socioeconomic strata and discourage cross-class mobility. We argue that this principle dominates when inequality is high and uncertainty low. The current moment is one of high inequality and high uncertainty, which results in intense status anxiety, yet does not rule out solidaristic solutions. Our contributions are to diagnose the causes of our current malaise, and to theorize the normative bases for the political choice facing contemporary western democracies.
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