Social Security Provisions in practice: Evidence from Prerogative of Indian workforce

Abstract

Social security not only protects people from various shocks across the life cycle, but also plays a crucial role in boosting domestic demand and productivity, supporting the structural transformation of national economies, and promoting a culture of decent work. In this concern, the paper intends to analyze the association of prerogative of the workforce for social security provisions with various factors related to the quality of workforce and status of employment, using unit level data extracted from the 68th round of NSS survey on employment and unemployment with the help of chi-square test statistics. The paper wraps up with the conclusion that social security provisions are still at a milestone as the majority of the workforce is out of social security net. Qualitative attributes of workforce help in getting better job opportunities in the formal sector and thus opens a route of entitlement for social security provisions. Herein, the status of employment has emerged as an important factor in this concern. Herein, regular and contractual workers in government and large enterprises/organisations, formal private limited companies and cooperative societies etc. are entitled for social security provisions. Casual workers, domestic servants, self-employed and informal workers without any job contract have remained out of the social security net. Hereby, a special policy of the government is required to broaden the umbrella for social security provisions. There is a dire need of special provisions for self-employed to provide strength to entrepreneurs to come up as job providers under the safety net to fight against the uncertain and undesirable phase of a lifetime.