Living and Working Tomorrow (2035)

Challenges for Social Security (Administrations)

How will we work and live in 2035? And how will this impact social security? These are some of the questions the Dutch Sociale Verzekeringsbank (SVB) has in order to prepare for potential future developments that might influence its work. It is not easy to predict how potential changes will evolve into the future. It might be even harder to map how these changes can impact social security. However, we do notice some societal developments today that will influence the course of social security systems in the near future.

That is why the Research Unit European Social Security of KU Leuven's Faculty of Law and Criminology, and the European Institute of Social Security gladly took on SVB's challenge to provide a projection of future challenges for social security. They jointly conducted an exploratory research project to map these challenges as a starting point for further reflection on how to develop our social security systems. You can find the output of the research and more background below.

OUTPUT

BACKGROUND

EISS collaborated on a research project charting future challenges for social security (administrations), commissioned by the Dutch SVB in order for it to prepare for future developments.

The research consists of three main pillars:

• Contributions by young academics
• Interviews with leading administrators and academics
• Identification of future challenges for social security

These main pillars have been brought together in a final publication Living and Working Tomorrow (2035): Challenges for Social Security (Administrations), which can be consulted through the link above.

Contributions by young academics

Five young academics were asked to give their vision on potential future developments in social security, each reflecting on a specific domain relevant to social security. Their work was brought in dialogue with a more senior academic colleague as well as representatives working in the implementation at SVB during an internal reflection day, leading to the contributions as taken up in the final publication.

The young academics worked on the following topics:

• The role of income in social security - E. De Becker
• A changing world of work - A. Aranguiz
• Digitalization in the world of work - J. Vallistu
• Mobility and migration - M. Bouwmeester
• Changing family compositions - L. Mišič

Interviews with leading administrators and academics

Between April 2023 and August 2023, a selection of leading personalities in the field of EU law, social security law and constitutional law were interviewed on their personal views on how future societal developments might influence our social security systems. These persons were selected across diverse backgrounds, both professionally (coming from policymaking, administration, academia, judiciary) and nationally (representing all major traditional welfare families).

The interviews addressed topics relevant the interviewees' specific countries as well as the larger European and global context. A list of relevant topics was delivered to the interviewees before the interview, but the interviewees could freely give their personal view on the topics they considered most relevant. The reporting on the interviews is structured along the list of relevant topics, bundling the input of the interviewees for each topic.

Identification of future challenges for social security

The contributions of the young academics combined with the input from the interviewed persons and relevant literature allowed to identify 11 main challenges (administrations of) social security may face in the future.

These 11 challenges are presented in short in the handout you can find above. For a more in-depth introduction of each challenge, you can consult the full publication.