Rethinking universalism: Older-age international migrants and social pensions in Latin America and the Caribbean

Author:

Cruz-Martínez Gibrán1ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain; Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Chile

Abstract

This article criticises the social policy literature for equating universalism to the universal coverage of citizens. The current so-called ‘universal’ social protection systems guarantee social citizen rights, while the revisited truly universalism guarantees social human rights for everyone. Crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA) is used to map and track the level of exclusiveness or inclusiveness into social pensions in the existing 30 social pension programmes on 28 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. The article examines the various paths of eligibility requirements in social pensions conditioning three specific outcomes: (1) access for every older-age individual (truly universal), (2) access for every category of immigrant (no targeting by citizenship or residency) and (3) access for older-age immigrants with legal resident status (targeting by residency but not by citizenship). The research makes several contributions. First, it offers a useful inventory of the eligibility requirements for access to the 30 social pensions in LAC. Second, it proposes an analytical framework to redefine universalism after considering the migration-social policy nexus. Contrary to what the literature claims, there are no universal social pensions in the region. Third, the analysis indicates that only in two countries, Cuba and Jamaica, social pensions have immigrant-friendly targeting rules, requiring neither citizenship nor any length of residency to become a beneficiary. A total of 12 countries require citizenship and 24 of them a certain number of years of residency. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of social pensions are means tested. Finally, the csQCA allows identifying patterns of targeting mechanisms and is used to propose five exploratory regimes of inclusionary social pensions. The article calls for protected international mobility of the older-age population in the form of a truly universalistic system in which the entire aged population has the right to a social pension. Only then, countries would truly adhere to Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Funder

Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Subject

Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law,Sociology and Political Science,Geography, Planning and Development

Reference57 articles.

1. Migration and Citizenship

2. Benton ME (2010) A theory of denizenship. Doctoral thesis, University College London, London.

Cited by 4 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3