6
Recommendations were adopted during this period. In the second period after the Second World War, the tendency was, however, a more generalised and universal approach to social security which led to the adoption by the International Labour Conference of the Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102).
6. The adoption of Convention No. 102 constituted an important step in international social security law. This Convention consolidates into a single instrument the basic principles for protection under all social security benefit branches and sets minimum requirements as to scope of protection and level of benefits, the compliance of which has to be demonstrated by means of statistical criteria to be provided periodically by a ratifying country. If the scheme covers classes of employees, the Convention requires that at least 50 per cent of all employees must be covered, and if the scheme covers classes of the economically- active population the scope of protection should be at least 20 per cent of all residents. In order to make it possible to ratify for countries whose economy and medical facilities are insufficiently developed, the Convention allows such countries to ratify the Convention, if the scheme protects not less than half of the employees in industrial workplaces employing 20 persons or more. For the purpose of fixing the level of benefits the Convention defines a standard beneficiary whose benefits in the various contingencies should be at least a certain percentage of the standard wage as defined in the Convention. For example, the standard beneficiary is a man with wife and two children for sickness, unemployment and invalidity benefits, whereas for old-age benefit the standard beneficiary is a man with wife over pensionable age, and for survivors' benefits it is a widow with two children. A ratifying country has, therefore, to provide the necessary statistical and other material in order to demonstrate that the benefits in
respect of a standard beneficiary amount to at least the percentages laid down in the Convention.
7. correspond
to
The pre-war Conventions on social security have been found not to modern principles and approaches. The ILO Committee of Social Security Experts which is set up to advise the Office in matters of social security policy and operation recommended in 1959 to proceed with the revision by stages of the pre-war Convention by preparing a se parate instrument for each benefit branch taking into account the principles embodied in Convention No. 102. Thus, in 1962 a Convention was adopted, na mely No. 118, concerning equality of treatment of nationals and non-nationals in social security, and in 1964 a new Convention, No. 121, concerning employment injury benefits, was adopted by the International Labour In 1967 the Conference adopted Convention No. 128 which revised old instruments concerning old-age, invalidity and survivors' pensions, and in 1969 Convention No. 130 concerning medical care and sickness cash benefits. These new Conventions, except No. 118, are all supplemented by Recommendations.
Conference.
Information and research
8. The International Labour Office has over its 55 years of existence accumulated an important documentation on social security throughout the world which has been compiled from official and unofficial publications and periodicals, through questionnaires and special surveys, through the reports and other information provided by the various regional, area and branch offices and national correspondents, as well as from information collected by the ILO experts and ILO officials on mission in the various parts of the world. This information
is classified and analysed by the ILO staff and channelled back to the public through special studies on the various aspects of social security, practical handbooks, methodological studies, etc., as well as the replies to requests for information received from the various parts of the world.
9.
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The main social security legislation adopted in the various member States is translated and published separately in the three official languages English, French and Spanish in a special periodical the Legislative Series and the most important new developments in the social security fields are analysed and summarised in the ILO publication the Social and Labour Bulletin.
10.
The Office conducts periodically statistical inquiries into the cost of social security in the various member States. The results of these inquiries are published in a special publication The Cost of Social Security which on the one hand
gives a consolidated summary of the financial operations of all the schemes
classified under social security, and, on the other hand, contains an international comparison of social security costs, their levels and scope of coverage.
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