ON ESTABLISHING APPLICABLE LEGISLATION IN THE CASE OF THE SIMULTANEOUS EXECUTION OF WORK IN MORE THAN ONE MEMBER STATE IN THE COORDINATION OF SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEMS

The subject of the study is determining legislation applicable in case of pursuing activity as an employed person simultaneously in the territory of more than one Member State under the coordination of social security systems in the EU. This issue in question is of interest of case law, especially one of the Supreme Court and the one of the Court of Justice of the European Union. It is of fundamental practical importance. Since conditions for determining the applicable legislation are different, more liberal in the case of simultaneous work in the territory of at least two Member States than in the case of the posting of workers, a conclusion that in the case of performing work under the same employment contract with one employer in successive periods of time, it possible to determine that legislation according to the rule applicable in the case of simultaneous pursuing activity in the territory of more than one Member State, means that employers gain an opportunity to apply social security legislation in force at their seat without any time limits. This, in turn, directly affects legal conditions under which freedom to provide services and freedom of movement of workers related thereto may be exercised.

APPLICATION IN SWITZERLAND OF THE REGULATION (EC) NO. 883/2004 OF EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND COUNCIL OF 29 APRIL 2004 ON THE COORDINATION OF SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEMS

The aim of this article is to show that Switzerland applies European laws concerning coordination of social security systems in order to solve cross-border problems connected in particular with the increasing fenomenon of multiskilling, for the benefit of isured people, Switzerland and EU member countries.

Monitorowanie i ocena systemów ubezpieczeń społecznych – przegląd kryteriów proponowanych przez Komisję Europejską i Bank Światowy oraz propozycje ich rozszerzenia w kontekście starzenia się populacji Monitoring and assessment of social security systems – review of the criteria proposed by the European Commission and the World Bank and proposals for their extension in the context of an aging population

Ubezpieczenia społeczne w wielu krajach są istotną częścią systemu zabezpieczenia społecznego. Specyficzne cechy ubezpieczeń społecznych, m.in. ekwiwalentność i roszczeniowość świadczeń czy odrębność źródeł finansowania, powodują, że należy dbać o to, aby interesariusze mieli stały dostęp do wiarygodnych informacji na ich temat, zarówno w zakresie stanu bieżącego, jak i w odpowiednio długim horyzoncie czasu. Powinno to sprzyjać zaufaniu do ubezpieczeń społecznych. Celem artykułu jest dokonanie przeglądu obszarów i kryteriów stosowanych do oceny systemów ubezpieczeń społecznych na podstawie adaptacji rekomendacji Komisji Europejskiej oraz Banku Światowego w odniesieniu do systemów emerytalnych oraz wskazanie obszarów, których ocena powinna zyskać na znaczeniu w świetle starzenia się populacji. Jak wynika z przeprowadzonej analizy, ocena adekwatności i stabilności finansowej jest rozwinięta i stanowi pewien standard. Natomiast obszar związany z modernizacją ubezpieczeń społecznych, tj. dostosowywaniem ich do zmieniającej się sytuacji demograficznej i ekonomicznej, jest nadal wyzwaniem. Zbyt małą rolę przypisuje się ocenie równości ze względu na płeć, skali redystrybucji, transparentności i wiarygodności informacji o ubezpieczeniach społecznych.

UNDERSTANDING THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Old age is difficult to define, so many terms overlap or clash with each other, all of which raise a number of issues: the elderly, the third age, the fourth age, senior citizens, pensioners, etc. It is not easy to determine the threshold for entering the period of life commonly known as old age. One thing is certain, old age has changed profoundly. From now on, it has become for everyone, albeit with profound inequalities, a normal stage of life. Social security systems combined with the considerable progress in medicine have made it possible to increase the length of retirement. Whereas in 1950 a man retiring at 65 could expect to live for about 12 years, today life expectancy at 60 is over 20 years for men and over 25 years for women. However, this simple observation has much more complex consequences in terms of the social identity, integration and social behaviour of these new population groups. Despite an ageing population, Switzerland has a total labour force of 4.706 million people. In the fourth quarter of 2019, the participation rate of the population aged 15 and over was 68.1%. This puts the country in second place in Europe behind Iceland (79.9%). Switzerland's neighbouring states have significantly lower levels (Germany: 62.6%, Austria: 61.4%; France: 55.5%, Italy: 49.9%). In particular, Switzerland has one of the highest rates of employed women in Europe. The percentage of employed women increased significantly between 2010 and 2019, from 56.9% to 60%.

Applying emerging data-driven technologies in social security. Country experiences and ISSA guidelines

The application of ICT is enabling the implementation of increasingly comprehensive social security systems throughout the world as well as the transformation of social security services. In particular, the so-called data-driven innovation enables social security institutions to improve products, processes and organisational methods. In this line, social security institutions are progressively applying emerging technologies, such as Analytics, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence. While the pairing of analytics and big data allows for the performing of sophisticated analyses on increasingly large databases, Artificial Intelligence enables for automating processes and assisting staff in tasks requiring human decisions. However, the application of such emerging data-driven technologies brings with it many challenges, mainly the complexities of combining the adoption of not fully tested technologies with the required stability of critical operational processes and differences in the application of development processes. This paper addresses these issues and presents an overview of emerging data-driven technologies and their current application in social security institutions. It also presents guidelines supporting the application of data-driven technologies in social security developed by the International Social Security Association (ISSA).

Is There a Cap on Longevity? A Statistical Review

There is sustained and widespread interest in understanding the limit, if there is any, to the human life span. Apart from its intrinsic and biological interest, changes in survival in old age have implications for the sustainability of social security systems. A central question is whether the endpoint of the underlying lifetime distribution is finite. Recent analyses of data on the oldest human lifetimes have led to competing claims about survival and to some controversy, due in part to incorrect statistical analysis. This article discusses the particularities of such data, outlines correct ways of handling them, and presents suitable models and methods for their analysis. We provide a critical assessment of some earlier work and illustrate the ideas through reanalysis of semisupercentenarian lifetime data. Our analysis suggests that remaining life length after age 109 is exponentially distributed and that any upper limit lies well beyond the highest lifetime yet reliably recorded. Lower limits to 95% confidence intervals for the human life span are about 130 years, and point estimates typically indicate no upper limit at all. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application, Volume 9 is March 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Economic recovery in Russia: forecasts and prospects

Economists from the Center for Global Practice in Macroeconomic, Trade and Investment Policy (MTI) present trends in Russia's economic development in a World Bank report. The report also examines the feasibility of using cost-effective social security systems as the main tool for halving poverty.

Number and territorial distribution of the Ukrainians of Moldova in the beginning of the XXI century

The article presents a general description of the demographic situation in the Republic of Moldova at the beginning of the XXI century (negative population growth), a comparative analysis with the previous period is carried out, the main factors contributing to the deterioration of demographic indicators are analyzed: a decrease in the birth rate, an increase in mortality rates – causes and effects, migration outflow of the population of working and reproductive age, negative tendencies in nuptiality (reduction in the number of marriages, postponement of marriages to a later date, a sharp increase in the number of divorces), deterioration in the health of the population, reduction in life expectancy. In general, the deterioration of demographic indicators is a consequence of political instability, a high level of corruption, a severe economic crisis, resulting in the decline of living standards, increase of unemployment, degradation of social security systems, education, culture, science, etc. All these negative processes were reflected in the Ukrainians of Moldova. The most compact Ukrainians live in the northern regions and on the left bank of the Dniester, which is due to historical factors.

Self-employment, work and health: A critical narrative review

BACKGROUND: Self-employment (SE) is a growing precarious and non-standard work arrangement internationally. Economically advanced countries that favor digital labor markets may be promoting the growth of a demographic of self-employed (SE’d) workers who are exposed to particular occupational diseases, sickness, and injury. However, little is known about how SE’d workers are supported when they are unable to work due to illness, injury, and disability. OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to critically review peer-reviewed literature focusing on advanced economies to understand how SE’d workers navigate, experience, or manage their injuries and illness when unable to work. METHODS: Using a critical interpretive lens, a systematic search was conducted of five databases. The search yielded 18 relevant articles, which were critically examined and synthesized. RESULTS: Five major themes emerged from the review: (i) conceptualizing SE; (ii) double-edged sword; (iii) dynamics of illness, injury, and disability; (iv) formal and informal health management support systems; and (v) occupational health services and rehabilitation. CONCLUSION: We find a lack of research distinguishing the work and health needs of different kinds of SE’d workers, taking into consideration class, gender, sector, and gig workers. Many articles noted poor social security system supports. Drawing on a social justice lens, we argue that SE’d workers make significant contributions to economies and are deserving of support from social security systems when ill or injured.

Patient-Reported Financial Distress in Cancer: A Systematic Review of Risk Factors in Universal Healthcare Systems

Financial toxicity is a side effect of cancer that results from the perceived financial distress an individual may experience in the course of the disease. The purpose of this paper is to analyse underlying factors related to subjective financial distress in high-income countries with universal healthcare coverage. A systematic literature review was conducted to identify qualitative and quantitative studies of cancer patient-reported subjective financial distress by performing a search in the databases of PubMed, PsycINFO and CINAHL up to December 2020. A qualitative synthesis was performed linking the time-dependent occurrence of risk factors to derived categories of risk factors. Out of 4321 identified records, 30 quantitative and 16 qualitative studies were eligible. Classification of risk factors resulted in eight categories with a total of 34 subcategories. Subjective financial distress is primarily determined by pre-diagnosis sociodemographic- factors as well as financial and work factors that might change during the course of the disease. The design of healthcare and social security systems shapes the country-specific degree of subjective financial distress. Further research should focus on evolving multidisciplinary intervention schemes and multidimensional instruments for subjective financial distress to account for identified risk factors in universal healthcare systems more precisely.