Second-pillar Pension: Re-reforms in Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Macedonia, Romania, and Slovakia Benefit Payouts amidst Continuing Retrenchment (ESS Working Paper No. 72)
Most analyses of Central and Eastern Europe’s (CEE) second-pension pillars focus on Hungary and Poland, the first CEE governments to establish such pillars (1997-1999) and the first to retrench them (2010-2011). However, as the regional front-runners in second-pillar creation and termination, Hungary and Poland differ in some important ways...
Read MoreReversing Pension Privatizations: Rebuilding public pension systems in Eastern Europe and Latin America
From 1981 to 2014, thirty countries privatized fully or partially their public mandatory pensions. Fourteen countries were in Latin America (by chronological order, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Bolivia, Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Dominican Republic and Panama), another fourteen countries in Eastern Europe and the...
Read MoreBuilding the Future: Children and the Sustainable Development Goals in rich countries
The Sustainable Development Goals have set ambitious targets that apply to rich countries as well as poor. The most telling sign of a nation’s progress towards meeting those goals will be how well it meets the needs of its children. This Report Card offers an assessment of child well-being...
Read MoreThe European Youth Guarantee: A systematic review of its implementation across countries
The European Youth Guarantee (YG) is one of the most innovative labour market policies of recent years. It arrived at a time when an urgent and radical response was needed to address the detrimental long-lasting consequences of long-term unemployment. This article examines empirical evidence on the effectiveness of past...
Read MoreMaking Social Protection Work for Children in Central and Eastern Europe, The Caucasus and Central Asia: Findings and Recommendations
This brief, which is based on the UNICEF report Social Monitor: Social Protection for Child Rights and Well-Being in Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, provides key findings and recommendations related to social protection for children in the...
Read MoreSocial security provisions in the Constitution of Latvia
Relevant articles: Article 109 Everyone has the right to social security in old age, for work disability, for unemployment and in other cases as provided by law. Article 110 The State shall protect and support marriage – a union between a man and a woman, the family, the rights...
Read MoreEuropean Code of Social Security
This code provides guidelines the Council of Europe’s member States approach to social security. Link to code...
Read MoreCombining constitutional and international standards for social protection resource mobilization in Latvia
Summary: In 2000, twenty Latvian parliamentarians complained to Latvia’s Constitutional Court that certain employers within Latvia were not paying social insurance premiums into a fund for their employees, and that this was a breach of the human right to social security as per Latvia’s constitution as well as Articles...
Read MoreProtecting pensions against austerity measures in Latvia
Summary: Latvian pensioners formed a petition and challenged the constitutionality of Latvia’s Law on State Pension and State Allowance Disbursement – commonly known as the ‘Disbursement Law’ – in the period from 2009 to 2012. The overall economy in Latvia was rapidly declining in 2009, and the Latvian Parliament,...
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