The social protection of the unemployed

Unemployment is the most basic risk covered by social security. Sickness, accident, maternity, incapacity, old age or even death can be considered as special cases of interruption of earnings. Unemployment is the standard case, where a worker loses earnings simply because he or she is unable to find gainful employment, without reference to any particular causality. Nevertheless, the unemployment branch is very often treated rather poorly, in comparison with other branches of social security. In most countries – except the United Kingdom – it was created much later than other branches, and it involves a larger part of assistance, as opposed to insurance. Usually, fewer people are covered against the risk, the conditions for entitlement are stricter, the benefits tend to be lower and shorter in duration, and controls and sanctions are more severe.1 People are generally worse off when their loss of earnings is the result of a dismissal rather than disease or accident. In this contribution we try to analyse the reasons why unemployment has such a relatively poor status in social security. And we examine the extent to which this difference of treatment can be considered a form of discrimination and, in some cases, contrary to the basic principles of international social law.