Diverse Ways to Build Social Protection? Lessons From the Breadth of Emergency Social Policy Responses Around the World

This brief examines the social policy responses aimed at protecting income and job losses implemented amidst the pandemic. A rich dataset has been exploited to characterize the breadth of countries’ policy responses by building an index that reflects the diversity of policies implemented, amongst all those available, in terms of social assistance, social insurance, and the labour market. This analysis offers a qualitative approach on whether governments’ actions were comprehensive or narrow, conditional on the fiscal efforts and the stringency of the containment measures. There are three key insights from this analysis. First, even when social protection systems are highly conditioned by the income level of each country, all countries resorted to the social assistance dimension of social protection. Second, even in the presence of new social assistance measures, most developed countries also relied on social insurance and labour market policies. Finally, social protection systems should be continuously strengthened, especially in case more stringent measures are required due to the current and future threats to public health.