Apologies for cross-posting
Seminar on the Life Risks, Life Course and Social Policy, Paris, May 31-1
June 2007
Papers for the seminar are now available on the OECD website at:
http://www.oecd.org/document/26/0,2340,en_2649_33933_38613594_1_1_1_1,00.html
For many decades, social policy interventions were limited to assist and
insure against a small number of well defined risks. As a result of diverse
and ongoing social trends, however, the social order based on standard
employment relations, the male breadwinner model and social security in
defined but exceptional circumstances has changed. New risks have emerged
and are often mutually reinforcing. Different groups of individuals are
likely to frame and respond to risks differently. The development of new
risks, or the additional complexity of those risks already existing, raises
key questions for social policy. Recognising these developments, the 2005
Meeting of OECD Social Affairs Ministers asked the OECD Secretariat to
undertake work on the topic of Life risks, the life course and social policy,
noting that "The OECD should identify how social and economic goals can be
best achieved, for example by policy interventions at certain critical
'transition points' or by redistribution of income from one point in the life
course to another. The OECD should further assess the best ways of financing
social policies across the life course."
In order to address these issues, the OECD is holding a seminar in Paris on
May 31 and 1 June 2007 to develop responses to these emerging challenges. The
fundamental policy question to be addressed in the seminar is whether the
current designs of social protection systems in OECD societies are
well-suited to contemporary life course realities. The seminar will look in
detail at recent policy developments in OECD countries to develop more
flexible time-based social policies, as well as related issues, such as
asset-based welfare programmes, as well as policies to encourage
redistribution of income and/or time over the life course and how these might
be structured most effectively
Peter Whiteford
Principal Administrator (Welfare Reform)
Social Policy Division
Directorate of Employment, Labour and Social Affairs
OECD
Phone: 33 (0)1 45 24 90 41
Fax: 33 (0)1 45 24 90 98
OECD Social Policy Division via www.oecd.org/els/social
|