Social Security Systems In The Member States Of The European Union

The paper entitled Social security systems in the Member States of the European Union addresses the issue of social security, which is all legal regulations to ensure social security at the level of individual, social group or total population, and to protect disadvantaged people or marginalized (Țiclea and Georgescu, 2013, p.15). Its purpose is to counteract the consequences of various events, generally qualified as social risks. This is clear from important international documents, including Convention No 102/1952 of the International Labor Organization, which uses the expression social security and specifies its contents. In the view of the International Labor Organization, since the state is an association of citizens that exists to ensure their general well-being, the promotion of social security is the state's own attribute. Social security aims to protect individuals from risks and unforeseen situations in social life. It is considered to be a guarantee against psychological risks (illness, maternity, disability, death, old age) and occupational risks (accidents at work and occupational diseases). Social security is associated with a list of events that, despite a particular variety, have common characteristics, they are in fact social risks, ie risks likely to reduce or suppress the earning capacity of people (primarily employees). There are certain events that prevent a person from earning a normal income from a professional activity. From this point of view, social risks can be physical risks and economic risks. There are risks of occupational origin such as an accident at work or an occupational disease that lead to temporary or permanent inability to work. There are also risks of extra-professional origin such as illness, disability, old age, death, widowhood. Economic risks are generated by situations in which the labor force, without being altered, is impossible to exercise, due to the lack of available jobs. Social security, which occupies a significant place in people's daily lives, often begins before birth (prenatal care) and extends after death (survivor's pension). Social security requires the existence of a large national compulsory self-help organization which can only be fully effective if it is general in terms of both the people it protects and the risks it covers. Its ideal is for the entire population of a country to be protected against all factors of insecurity. The term social security is used not only in the phrase social security policies but also in that of social security systems. These schemes are intended to organize a financial redistribution, ie a drawdown on the one hand and a distribution of funds drawn up between the beneficiaries of this redistribution on the other hand. The need for individual and collective security has always existed, which is why the organization of social protection programs has begun to appear in industrialized countries. These were mandatory for certain categories of workers, but over time their field of action was progressively extended to the entire population.