The topic of access to social protection is very broad. On the one hand, it seems impossible to address all social risks at once, and on the other hand counter-productive to address each social risk individually. Therefore we chose to identify categories of risks.
The first survey on access to social protection for those in atypical forms of employment targets specifically the health related risks. This family of risks includes all risks that may affect a citizen’s physical aptitude to work, and therefore their work-income, such as:
1) Access to health care = is access to the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in human beings. The social protection will cover the partial/full reimbursement of consultations, medications and hospitalisation.
2) Benefits linked to loss of revenue due to health related issues such as:
a. Sickness: benefits linked to the incapacity of the individual to work because s/he is ill.
b. Professional injury: benefits applicable to individuals who cannot work because of an injury that occurred in the frame of their professional activity. This term is used to compare the situation of employed and self-employed workers.
c. Occupational disease: benefits applicable to individuals who are affected by any chronic ailment that occurs as a result of work or occupational activity.
d. Maternity: “cash benefits (…) paid during maternity leave in the period immediately preceding and following childbirth (…) They can also be in kind, such as the provision of care conjunction with pregnancy and childbirth”.
e. Long term care: is a variety of services which help meet both the medical and non-medical needs of people with a chronic illness or disability who cannot care for themselves for long periods of time9. It is usually a mixture of in kind and cash benefits.
