Focus Areas

The World Bank works on a wide variety of labor and social protection issues in East Asia and Pacific (EAP). These can be divided into the following categories: 

 Social Risk Management
 Social Safety Nets
 Pensions
 Labor Markets and Migration
 Child Labor
 Disability

Social Risk Management

The Social Risk Management concept is related to the idea that all individuals, households and communities, specially the most vulnerable ones, are exposed to multiple risks from different sources. Risk prevention and mitigation strategies comprise all sorts of formal and informal instruments aiming to prevent and cope with different kinds of risks. Among these risks, health problems and disasters have a relative relevance in the region. 

Recent catastrophic events such as the South East Asia tsunami in December 2004 proved that the region is not providing adequate responses to the risk of disasters, and that action from the public sector is thus required. Health insurance is also a rather important issue in most of the countries of the region. The importance of health issues is increasing driven by factors such as the spread prevalence of HIV/AIDS and the Avian Influenza emergence in Asia. 

The Bank is currently responding to insurance issues via the tsunami grants in Indonesia and Thailand, equity funds in Cambodia and Lao PDR and rural health financing in China. 

Regarding social security in general, the Bank is about to release the evaluation of the Social Security Pilot in Liaoning province in China, and is also providing technical assistance to the Vietnam goverment. 

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Social Safety Nets 

Safety nets are mechanisms that mitigate the effects of poverty and other risks on vulnerable households. These safety nets can be formal interventions or private-informal mechanisms. The EAP region has traditionally placed the bulk of the responsibility for social protection on informal nets such as family and community ties. As societies urbanize and become richer, these mechanisms are no longer suitable. The region is thus now facing new challenges that demand public interventions in the field.

The Bank basically works on safety nets in the region through the social investment funds and since recently through conditional cash transfers. We are currently supporting informal social safety nets by funding community driven development (CDD) projects in Thailand, Lao PDR and Timor-Leste. The Bank is also engaged in a social protection dialogue in Mongolia on how to improve the cash transfer program.

Social safety net reforms are being addressed in ongoing or planned analytical work in China, Lao PDR, the Philippines, Vietnam and the Pacific Islands.

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Pensions

The prospect of an increasingly aging population is the main factor pushing pension reform and pension systems up in the governments’ agenda. Most of the countries in the region are in the process of defining the appropriate pension system that includes private and public instruments and fits every country specific characteristics and needs.

The Bank is facilitating work on pensions in China, and has published recently a report on pension liabilities and reform options in the country. 

Also see:
 Pension Systems in East Asia and Pacific: Challenges and Opportunities (488kb pdf)

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Labor Markets and Migration

As a result of factors such as economic integration, economic structural changes and urbanization, the EAP countries are facing new and increasing problems in their labor markets, as well as unprecedented large migration flows. Both phenomena are also posing new challenges on the region’s social protection and labor systems.

To aid in issues of labor and migration, the Bank is currently carrying out labor markets advisory and analytical activities in China and a program on labor migration in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, Vietnam and Yunnan).

Also see:
 Active Labor Markets Programs: Policy Issues for East Asia (115kb pdf)

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Child Labor

Child labor is an increasingly important and widespread problem in the region. Although there is some evidence of the negative impacts of child labor on school participation and educational attainment, the overall effects of this phenomenon are only starting to be assessed. The Bank published last year a study on the consequences of child labor on socioeconomic outcomes (Development Research Group) using panel data from Vietnam, and  will release soon a paper on child labor in Cambodia.

Also see:
 Child Labor in the East Asia and Pacific Region (links to main WB Child Labor website)

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Disability

Disability is a cross-cutting issue, which needs to be appropriately regarded in all sectors. However, disabled people are often excluded from school or the workplace and are forced to depend on others in the family and community for physical and economic support. Social protection programs thus need to pay special attention to disabled people as a vulnerable group.

The Bank does not have any specific program on disability in the region. However, disability is also widespread and often disregarded in East Asia and Pacific countries. The Bank has recently published a study on the relationships between disability and poverty (Development Research Group). The study uses 11 household surveys from 9 different developing countries, Cambodia, Indonesia and Mongolia among them.

The Bank is also about to start a project to improve the capacity of governments in Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia and Mongolia to collect information on children with disabilities as part of the Education Management Information Systems of these countries.

Also see:
 Disability in the East Asia and Pacific Region (links to main WB Disability website)
 Video on Disability 

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More information (links to the main WB Social Protection website):
 
 Social Risk Management
 Safety Nets & Transfers
 Pensions
 Labor Markets 
 Child Labor
 Disability