Social Security (Return, Rehabilitation, Insurance and Micro Pension) for Indian Overseas Women Migrant Workers.
Rationale for Establishing a Return and Retirement Fund for Indian Overseas Women Migrant Workers in the ECR Countries
Abstract:
Overseas Indian Workers are excluded from access to formal social security and retirement savings schemes available to residents of the ECR countries. They are also excluded from formal pension, provident fund and gratuity schemes available to Indian workers. No mechanism presently exist to enable and encourage these workers to either save for their old age or have a motivation to come back to India for a return and resettlement. As a consequence a majority of these Overseas Indian Workers face the grave risk of poverty when they return to India and become too old to work.
On average, nearly one in every five Indian workers in ECR countries is women. These women workers are even more vulnerable to old age poverty since they enjoy a higher life expectancy than men but are disadvantaged due to relatively lower incomes, a shorter working age and interruptions in employment due to childbirth and other family responsibilities.
The paper focuses the rationale and requirement for such a scheme and provides recommendations to the policy makers towards designing such institutional mechanism that would encourage the target population to voluntarily save for their scheduled return and to also improve their retirement incomes. The paper argues in favor of using Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) mechanism for providing socioeconomic safety net. Even with needed reforms of formal sector pensions, part of the requirement for retirement income security will need to be met from newer instruments such as the CCTs. CCT have received considerable attention as instruments for eliciting desirable behavior on the part of the recipients, minimizing transaction costs and errors in delivery of public services. That the CCT mechanism can be used effectively and efficiently to motivate pension savings in India has been partly demonstrated by states like Rajasthan and Andhra by launching co contributory pension scheme with the states contributing financially to augment retirement savings of low-income individuals.
Key Words: Women Migrant Workers, Return and Old Age Income Security, Pension, CCTs.
Rationale for Establishing a Return and Retirement Fund for Indian Overseas Women Migrant Workers in the ECR Countries
Abstract:
Overseas Indian Workers are excluded from access to formal social security and retirement savings schemes available to residents of the ECR countries. They are also excluded from formal pension, provident fund and gratuity schemes available to Indian workers. No mechanism presently exist to enable and encourage these workers to either save for their old age or have a motivation to come back to India for a return and resettlement. As a consequence a majority of these Overseas Indian Workers face the grave risk of poverty when they return to India and become too old to work.
On average, nearly one in every five Indian workers in ECR countries is women. These women workers are even more vulnerable to old age poverty since they enjoy a higher life expectancy than men but are disadvantaged due to relatively lower incomes, a shorter working age and interruptions in employment due to childbirth and other family responsibilities.
The paper focuses the rationale and requirement for such a scheme and provides recommendations to the policy makers towards designing such institutional mechanism that would encourage the target population to voluntarily save for their scheduled return and to also improve their retirement incomes. The paper argues in favor of using Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) mechanism for providing socioeconomic safety net. Even with needed reforms of formal sector pensions, part of the requirement for retirement income security will need to be met from newer instruments such as the CCTs. CCT have received considerable attention as instruments for eliciting desirable behavior on the part of the recipients, minimizing transaction costs and errors in delivery of public services. That the CCT mechanism can be used effectively and efficiently to motivate pension savings in India has been partly demonstrated by states like Rajasthan and Andhra by launching co contributory pension scheme with the states contributing financially to augment retirement savings of low-income individuals.
Key Words: Women Migrant Workers, Return and Old Age Income Security, Pension, CCTs.
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