ABSTRACT
Much of the debate about welfare reform over the past decade has focused on social insurance systems and on pensions. This is hardly surprising, since the bulk of social security expenditure worldwide is on social insurance and since pensions account for the largest component of this expenditure. A fault-line runs through the social security landscape, separating the terrain of social insurance from that of social assistance. In the Nordic countries, the terrain is dominated by social insurance, with social assistance having little more than a small residual role. Social security systems all over the world have come under increasing pressure from a number of sources, including demographic change, social transformations, economic difficulties and fiscal pressures. One of the clearest trends is for strengthened work requirements for people receiving social assistance payments. Some aspects of the reforms have created incentives for particular components of the system to implement cost-containment measures.
