This paper reviews the erosion of labor and social protections for U.S. workers and households over recent decades. It discusses the causes and the relative weight of different elements of the erosion in order to bring clarity to the discussion of needed reforms. It proposes a framework of policy...

Social protection programmes require processing significant data amounts, including often-sensitive information such as household assets, health status and physical or intellectual disabilities. Increasingly, social protection programmes use unique, intimate biometric-technology data such as fingerprints, iris structure and face topologies. Inextricably linked to the individual body, they are more sensitive...

Social protection systems around the world face challenges to provide full and effective coverage for workers in all forms of employment, including those in “new” forms of employment. While some emerging work and employment arrangements may provide greater flexibility for workers and employers, they may lead to significant gaps...

This paper reviews debates and practice around the conventional and alternative measures of economic well-being. It presents alternative aggregate indicators, broadly referred to as “Beyond GDP”, that track non-market contributions to well-being, including household production and ecosystem services. Evaluating the major contending measures–Genuine Progress Indicator, Human Development Index, Happiness/lifeevaluation...

Digital labour platforms connect workers with consumers of this work and provide the infrastructure and the governance conditions for the exchange of work and its compensation. Yet the architecture, or business model design, of digital labour platforms has important consequences for workers, affecting whether they are empowered or exploited...

Countries have used many options to finance universal social protection. Those options include: (i) re-allocating public expenditures (e.g., from financing public subsidies to financing specific programs); (ii) increasing tax revenues, including revenue generated from taxation of natural resources; (iii) using the reductions of debt or debt servicing; (iv) expanding...

The theme of the book is Growth and Inequality. These are the two fundamental problems with the economy of the Pakistan. The rate of economic growth has barely touched 5 percent over the last decade. Simultaneously, the economic and social structure have perpetuated high income, wealth and regional disparities....

This report brings together and assesses new research on hazardous child labour, following the ILO’s last report on this subject in 2011. The report demonstrates that we have extensive experience and an ample evidence base to assist us in tackling hazardous child labour. Ce rapport rassemble et évalue de...

The last four decades have been characterised by drastic changes in the distribution of income between wages and profits in both OECD countries and emerging economies. We have recently analysed the causes of the decline in the wage share in the developed and developing countries for a project titled...

Is it possible for Myanmar to take a path to sustainable development that would avoid the pitfalls of the orthodox development paradigm? This report argues that this is not only necessary but...

This overview summarises the final findings of the Welfare Conditionality project (2013-2018). It presents analysis on the effectiveness, impacts and ethics of welfare conditionality, and the sanctions and mandatory support that underpin this approach. Discussion draws on analyses of qualitative data generated in interviews with 52 policy stakeholders, 27...

The Secretariat has the honour to transmit to the Human Rights Council the report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, prepared pursuant to Council resolution 35/19, focusing on the International Monetary Fund and its impact on social protection. Link to report (Arabic, Chinese,...

Inequality in Asia and the Pacific is on the rise. Many countries, including those held up as models of dynamism and prosperity, have experienced a widening of existing gaps, accompanied by environmental degradation. Market-led growth alone is not sufficient to deliver a prosperous, sustainable future for all. This report...

To offer a multidimensional view of socioeconomic well being, Egypt’s Social Progress Indicators (ESPI) measure six topics: health; education; labour; urbanization; food, water, and agricultural land; and economic policy as a determinant of social progress. By incorporating gender analysis across these six topics, ESPI also highlights the gender gaps...

The Secretariat has the honour to transmit to the Human Rights Council the report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, on his mission to the United States of America from 1 to 15 December 2017. The purpose of the visit was to evaluate,...

Social protection systems around the world face challenges to provide full and effective coverage for workers in all forms of employment, including those in “new” forms of employment. While some emerging work and employment arrangements may provide greater flexibility for workers and employers, they may lead to significant gaps...

The EU Social Protection Systems Programme (EU-SPS) is a 4-year programme supporting ten developing partner country governments and national expert institutions in their efforts to develop inclusive and sustainable social protection systems in close co-ordination with other international partners. Link to...

This mobile app allows business managers and auditors to create interactive checklists that will help them ensure a forced labour-free operation. There are 38 checkpoints in total – each one provides best-practice recommendations for taking action. A PDF version is also...

The majority of people living with or affected by HIV and AIDS are of working age. It is essential to understand and measure the economic and social impacts of the epidemic on the labour force. Bringing together health data, in particular HIV prevalence data, with labour force, economic and...

The Aarhus Convention, which is open for global accession, offers powerful twin protections for the environment and human rights. It provides an effective model for ensuring public input in defining and implementing green economy programmes, in choosing the most appropriate road maps to sustainability and for increasing transparency and...

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters  was adopted on 25 June 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus (Århus) at the Fourth Ministerial Conference as part of the “Environment for Europe” process. It...

Despite the recent slowdown of the global economy and the weakening of Africa’s economic performance with the attendant implications for inclusion and sustainability, the long-term growth outlook for Africa remains promising. The region’s long-term fundamentals remain strong as the pace of growth stands to benefit from a demographic dividend...

The first part of this article provides a brief litigation update on various worker lawsuits within the gig economy. While the O’Connor v. Uber case has received the lion’s share of attention and analysis, similar lawsuits on labor standards have been filed against other on-demand platforms. Analysis of the...

The Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal is publishing a collection of papers on the “gig” economy and labor law, edited by Valerio De Stefano of the International Labor Organization. This paper places what is seen as an innovation in a larger historical context. It compares “gig” work to the putting-out...

One of the key assumptions underpinning the rise of ‘crowdsourced work’ – from transport apps including Uber to online platforms such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk – is the assertion put forward by most platforms that crowdworkers are self-employed, independent contractors. As a result, individuals might find themselves without recourse to worker-protective...