Governance

The Global Commission on Migration has asked the World Bank to prepare a short policy research paper on the portability of social security benefits – in particular pensions and health benefits – for temporary migrant workers. The aim is to identify best practices and obstacles for migrant workers to transfer acquired social security rights to their country of origin upon return.

Given the atypical nature of the migrants’ employment lifecycle, migrant workers require special provisions in terms of social security, one of them being the ability to eventually transfer entitlements like health benefits, pensions, and invalidity annuities back to the country of origin.

The traditional instrument to regulate transferability of social benefits is bilateral social security agreements between migrant-sending and receiving countries. The paper aims at giving an overview of existing bilateral social security agreements, assessing their implementation, and assess the situation of migrant workers in the absence of bilateral agreements. The paper will identify gaps in the social protection of migrant workers originating in a lack of portability, and proposing new approaches to enhance the portability of social security benefits. Country case studies (Mexico, Morocco, the Philippines, and Turkey) will highlight the workings and practicability of the administrative processes related to the implantation.

The papers described above and others that are being produced as part of the research program on international migration of the World Bank will be made available to the Global Commission on International Migration. They will also be gathered in a separate volume and will be widely disseminated.