It has been argued that the high cost of social security is in part responsible for the low levels of economic growth in industrialized societies since 1973. The argument takes three forms. First, it is said that high levels of unemployment benefits reduce the incentives to take paid work. Second, resistance to the payment of taxes and contributions leads to wage demands, inflation, and government deficits. Third, it is argued that because people have rights to social security benefits they are less likely to save; this lowers investment and thus economic growth. For all these reasons social security is said to have contributed to or even to have been responsible for not only low growth but also for high levels of unemployment.

In response to these criticisms it has been pointed out that empirical investigations lend little support to the contention that people prefer benefits to work, though the availability of benefits may make them less willing to take low-paying jobs. Second, it is argued that tax resistance would apply whether pensions were provided in the private or in the public sector. Indeed, if pensions were provided in the private sector they would have to be capitalized, which would require higher contributions and therefore lower cash earnings, leading to still greater pressures for higher pay. Third, the evidence that social security reduces savings is by no means conclusive; indeed, in many countries there has been a boom in the variety of different forms of saving following the establishment of pay-as-you-go systems of financing social security. Moreover, investment is limited by the availability of profitable investment opportunities rather than by any shortage of savings. And if low savings does limit investment, governments can generate a budget surplus out of which investment can be financed.

Some critics argue that social insurance benefits should be replaced by a negative income tax. As countries get richer, it is argued, an increasing proportion of the population is in a position to take out private insurance against the risks for which social security provides. If social security were concentrated exclusively on the lower income groups, provision could be more generous and the burden of public provision could be reduced. The administrative and other problems of using annual tax returns as the basis of making cash payments to individuals whose circumstances are constantly changing as they go in and out of employment, marriage, and cohabitation are considerable. But in the context of saving, it was because income-tested pensions were thought to be damaging to thrift that many social insurance programs were established in the first place. Low earners are unlikely to save if the yield of their savings leads to a dollar-for-dollar reduction in pension. Moreover, many countries in Europe already have income-related housing allowance schemes that serve much the same function even though they are separate from income taxes. Where this is the case, there is no room for a further negative income tax or other income-tested scheme without imposing extremely high tax rates on increased earnings. Most important of all, it is by no means clear that the economically securer members of the population would be willing to accept anything like the existing level of contributions and taxes if they stood to gain nothing from social security. As a result, provision for the poor might be no better or, more probably, it might even be worse than it is as part of a scheme to which all contribute and on which all are in a position to make claims. Historically, services for the poor have always tended to be poor services.

Empirical studies have shown some small association between higher levels of social security spending and lower rates of economic growth. But it is not clear that one necessarily causes the other. Many other factors are at work. Countries that had a high proportion of the population in agriculture were in a favourable position to achieve high growth in the postwar period as their agricultural populations declined. Moreover, countries that have had relatively low rates of economic growth, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, are relatively low spenders on social security, while countries that have had high rates of economic growth, such as Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands, are high social security spenders.

Critics of social security are not confined to those concerned about its effects on the economy or about personal freedom regarding the extent to which and methods by which individuals provide for their security. There are also those concerned about the “target inefficiency” of social security, or its limited redistribution to the poor. This attack is generally directed at earnings-related benefits. Proposals have been made to use the yield of social security contributions, supplemented by taxes, to provide everyone with a minimum income on which they could live at a modest level supplemented by earnings if they wished to take paid work. Social dividend schemes of this kind are seen not only as a way of redistributing income but also of reducing unemployment. A major problem with such schemes is the high level of contributions and taxes needed to finance the minimum income if it is to go to those with jobs as well as to those without them and be sufficient to live on, if only at a minimum level.

It is true, however, that high spending on social security has failed to solve the problem of relative poverty in industrialized societies. Yet abolishing poverty was never the original intention, or at least it was not in many countries. Social security was seen as a system of maintaining income by redistribution from the well to the sick, from the young to the old, and from those with jobs to those without them. This involves substantial redistribution but not necessarily redistribution from rich to poor. For instance, while there is more illness and unemployment among low earners, higher earners tend to live longer and thus draw pensions for a longer period.

A study financed by the European Economic Community showed the extent to which poverty remained in the Common Market countries around the year 1975. Poverty was defined as half the average level of living for each country. The study showed that the greatest success in combating poverty was achieved in the Netherlands and, second, in the United Kingdom, though Belgium and West Germany came close to the United Kingdom. Both of the first two countries have primarily flat-rate benefits. Poverty, however, was at its greatest in Ireland and Italy—both countries with substantial agricultural populations—though Ireland also relies on flat-rate benefits.

A variety of reasons explain why poverty persists in industrialized countries despite their elaborate provisions for social security; the precise reasons and their relative importance differ from one country to another. One reason may be that the arbitrarily selected poverty line is just above the level of living provided by social assistance. A second may be the failure of all those entitled to benefits to claim them. A third may be that certain categories of people in some countries are not entitled to claim social assistance (e.g., the long-term unemployed). A fourth reason may be that earnings-related benefits do not secure a sufficient income for low earners to rise above the poverty line or that their record of contributions is insufficient to achieve this result. But considerable poverty may also persist among families headed by a full-time worker. This is more likely to occur in one-parent families when the earner is a female with limited skills and low earnings. But it may also occur in two-parent families with one earner and several children, where family allowances fall below the cost of maintaining a child at the minimum level or the cost of rent is considerable.

In the case of developing countries social security is criticized for reinforcing the dichotomies between urban and rural populations in general and between employed and unemployed persons in the urban sector. Social insurance contributions, which are in effect taxes specifically tied to providing benefits to the members of the schemes, cannot be used by governments for the benefit of the community as a whole. This limits the capacity of governments to raise tax revenues for broader purposes. Moreover, different health benefits as well as cash benefits may be provided for different occupational groups, thus perpetuating and accentuating inequalities. Those who defend social security argue in reply that requiring part of earnings to be put into an insurance fund is robbing no one outside the scheme, since only by providing the benefits could the particular taxes be justified and compliance with paying them be secured. Criticisms regarding inequality should be directed at the pattern of original earnings, not at social security, which mobilizes part of them for good purposes.

Nearly all countries make periodic reports summarizing their social security provisions; these are published every few years by the United States Social Security Administration, Office of Research, Statistics, and International Policy, with the title Social Security Programs Throughout the World. A second basic international source is The Cost of Social Security, published irregularly by the International Labour Office, which contains comparative tables of the costs, benefits, and financing of social security schemes. For the Common Market countries provisions are periodically summarized in Comparative Tables of the Social Security Systems in the Member States of the European Communities: General Systems, published by the Commission of the European Communities.

A summary of the findings of comparative research is found in Harold L. Wilensky et al., Comparative Social Policy: Theories, Methods, Findings (1985). For economic aspects see L.D. McClements, The Economics of Social Security (1978). The International Labour Office report by 10 experts referred to in the text is Into the Twenty-First Century: The Development of Social Security (1984).

The historical evolution of the schemes in Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Switzerland is described against a wide economic, social, and political background in Peter A. Köhler and Hans F. Zacher (eds.), The Evolution of Social Insurance 1881–1981 (1982). For a penetrating comparison between Britain and Sweden, see Hugh Heclo, Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden: From Relief to Income Maintenance (1974). For the United States, see Bruno Stein, Social Security and Pensions in Transition: Understanding the American Retirement System (1980, reprinted 1983). Other historical studies of advanced societies include M.A. Jones, The Australian Welfare State: Growth, Crisis and Change, new ed. (1983); Dennis Guest, The Emergence of Social Security in Canada, 2nd ed. rev. (1985); and Brian Easton, Social Policy and the Welfare State in New Zealand (1980). For the evolution and current role of social security in developing countries, see James Midgley, Social Security, Inequality, and the Third World (1984).

Descriptions of health insurance and health services in various western European countries are given in Brian Abel-Smith and Alan Maynard, The Organization, Financing, and Cost of Health Care in The European Community (1978); and Brian Abel-Smith, Cost Containment in Health Care: The Experiences of 12 European Countries, 1977–83 (1984). For other countries, see Michael Kaser, Health Care in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (1976); Lee Soderstrom, The Canadian Health System (1978); Sidney Sax, A Strife of Interests: Politics and Policies in Australian Health Services (1984); and Medical Care Under Social Security in Developing Countries (1982), papers from a meeting of the International Social Security Association.