Social protection (SP) refers to the mix of policies and programmes aimed at reducing poverty and vulnerability for individuals unable to work owing to chronic illness, permanent disabilities or old age, and to protect the majority of the population against some of the unexpected downturns of life (sickness, unemployment, death of breadwinner, etc.). SP covers all forms of benefits and services (such as family benefits, universal health care services, and minimum-income provisions) that are generally available on a universal basis without regard to participation, contribution or employment status. The lack of proper social protection systems in many countries in the UNESCAP region makes their working populations vulnerable to excessive risks and undermines the countries’ longer-term human capital investment efforts. Poor population groups are for the most part not reached by formal SP systems. In fact, more than half of the world’s population is not covered by any type of formal SP with the UNESCAP region being far worse as compared with other parts of the world except Africa. The poor are largely dependent on support systems provided by non-state institutions including family and kin, ‘community’, religious bodies and non-governmental organizations. Special consideration should be paid to gender issues in SP. Although half of the population is women, they receive much less assistance and opportunities than do men. Many poverty reduction and social development programmes are focused on households and do not consider intra-household differences. Assets and labour are normally distributed in a different and unequal manner between men and women, and boys and girls, within a same household. Unless particular attention is paid to women’s specific problems and life patterns when SP policies and programmes are developed, approaches that might appear to be gender-neutral may actually disadvantage women. For example, labour market reforms must address such special concerns of women as a higher incidence of home-based work, competing demands from household responsibilities, and the particular needs surrounding child bearing. Social insurance programs need to be designed to take into account the longer life expectancies of women in most societies; the additional implications for women of the risk of loss of support due to death, abandonment, or divorce; and the less stable earning patterns commonly found among women.

The UNESCAP Gender and Development Section publication "Social Safety Nets for Women" has been named a winner of the "Notable Government Documents 2003" Award, presented by the Library Journal, a publication of the American Library Association. The study examines social protection systems and crisis-designed social safety nets in six Asian countries. A primary question in this study is whether the initiatives to mitigate the shocks of the crisis adequately reflect the different circumstances of women and men in the labor force and society in general. More...