Assessing Benefit Portability for International Migrant Workers : A Review of the Belgium-Morocco Bilateral Social Security Agreement
The portability of social benefits is gaining importance given the increasing share of individuals working at least part of their life outside their home country. Bilateral social security agreements (BSSAs) are considered a crucial approach to est...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/06/26436648/assessing-benefit-portability-international-migrant-workers-review-belgium-morocco-bilateral-social-security-agreement http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24732 |
| Summary: | The portability of social benefits is
gaining importance given the increasing share of individuals
working at least part of their life outside their home
country. Bilateral social security agreements (BSSAs) are
considered a crucial approach to establishing portability,
but the functionality and effectiveness of these agreements
have not yet been investigated; thus, important guidance for
policy makers in migrant-sending and migrant-receiving
countries is missing. To shed light on how BSSAs work in
practice, this document is part of a series providing
information and lessons from studies of portability in four
diverse but comparable migration corridors: Austria-Turkey,
Germany-Turkey, Belgium-Morocco, and France-Morocco. A
summary policy paper draws broader conclusions and offers
overarching policy recommendations. This report looks
specifically into the working of the Belgium-Morocco
corridor. Findings suggest that the BSSA is broadly working
well, with no main substantive issues in the area of pension
portability, except for the non-portability of the
noncontributory top-up pension and issues with widows’
pensions in case of divorce and repudiation, and in health
care, the pending introduction of portable health care for
retirees with single pensions from the other country.
Process issues around information provision in Morocco and
automation of information exchange are recognized. |
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