Welfare States and Informal Employment: A Global Comparison Beyond the North-South Divide

Until recently, the goal of undertaking comparative social policy in Japan was to position the nation among the advanced welfare states of Europe and the United States. However, with the rise of welfare states in the Global South, the field of comparative studies is also changing. How can we understand the spreading mechanism of welfare states from North to South? The advanced welfare states established in the twentieth century were founded on the ideas of a robust government with regulatory capacity and a labor market centered on full-time, regular employment. The conditions for social insurance with contributions from employees and employers to work well are: 1) the government's capacity to establish and operate the system and 2) a labor market dominated by stable companies that can afford to cover insurance premiums for their employees. The recent emergence of welfare states in the Global South prompts us to consider whether this logic applies to these regions. The issue of informal employment is central to understanding the mechanism by which welfare states have spread from North to South. Is the rise of welfare states in the Global South a result of the increasing formalization of employment or the expansion of non-employment-related social protection floors? I will look at seventy populous countries, with a particular focus on Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, and India, while focusing on pensions, unemployment, and healthcare, to provide an overview of the current spread of welfare states from North to South and offer a perspective for the future. It will be necessary to combine the formalization of employment and the extension of non-employment-related social protection floors to overcome informal employment in the Global North and South. A combination of techniques must be devised in order to simultaneously link and separate work and welfare.