Social Security: Concept and Scope, Evolution, Social Assistance and Social Assurance (Social Insurance), the Indian Social Security Laws, and the Code on Social Security 2020

Social security, in the ILO's definition, is the protection which society provides for its members through a series of public measures against the economic and social distress that would otherwise be caused by the stoppage or substantial reduction of earnings resulting from sickness, maternity, employment injury, unemployment, invalidity, old age and death; the provision of medical care; and the provision of subsidies for families with children. Its scope is set by the ILO's Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102), which lists nine branches: medical care, sickness benefit, unemployment benefit, old-age benefit, employment injury benefit, family benefit, maternity benefit, invalidity benefit and survivors' benefit. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948, Article 22) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966, Article 9) recognise the right to social security, and the ILO's Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202) asks every country to guarantee at least basic income security and essential health care to all.

Social security is delivered by two methods. Social assistance provides benefits to people in need, as a right laid down by law but without any contribution from them, financed from general tax revenue and usually subject to a test of means or of need; old-age, widow and disability pensions for the poor are the typical examples, and in India the National Social Assistance Programme (1995) — with its old-age, widow and disability pension schemes, the family benefit on the death of the breadwinner, and the Annapurna food scheme — is its main instrument. Social assurance, the term the syllabus uses for what is more commonly called social insurance, provides benefits as of right in return for contributions, usually by the worker, the employer and the state together; it pools risks among the insured, pays benefits related to earnings or contributions without a means test, and is administered by a public body; the ESI scheme and the provident fund and pension schemes are the Indian examples. Some writers add public services — universal, tax-financed provision such as a national health service — as a third form, and "social protection" is now the broader term covering all three.

The Constitution directs the state, within the limits of its economic capacity, to make effective provision for public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement (Article 41) and for maternity relief (Article 42), and places social security and social insurance in the Concurrent List (entry 23). The Employees' Compensation Act 1923 (the Workmen's Compensation Act until 2009) made the employer liable to pay compensation for personal injury caused to an employee by accident arising out of and in the course of employment, and for the occupational diseases in its Schedule III, according to formulas that relate compensation to monthly wages and the employee's age, with statutory minimum amounts; the employer is not liable for injury that does not disable the employee for more than three days, or where the employee was under the influence of drink or drugs or wilfully disobeyed a safety rule or removed a safety guard (except in case of death or permanent total disablement). The Employees' State Insurance Act 1948 created a contributory health-insurance scheme, run by the ESI Corporation, for employees in factories and establishments with ten or more persons earning up to a wage ceiling (₹21,000 a month since 2017); since July 2019 the employer contributes 3.25 per cent and the employee 0.75 per cent of wages. It pays medical benefit to the insured and his family, sickness benefit (about 70 per cent of wages for up to 91 days a year), maternity benefit, disablement benefit (temporary and permanent), dependants' benefit on death from employment injury, funeral expenses and an unemployment allowance, and replaces employees' compensation for insured workers.

The Maternity Benefit Act 1961, as amended in 2017, applies to factories, mines, plantations and shops and establishments with ten or more employees. A woman who has worked at least eighty days in the twelve months before her expected delivery is entitled to maternity benefit at her average daily wage for twenty-six weeks, of which not more than eight may precede delivery, for her first two children, and twelve weeks from the third child; a woman who adopts a child below three months of age, and a commissioning mother, are entitled to twelve weeks. The 2017 amendment also allowed work from home where the nature of work permits, and required a crèche in every establishment with fifty or more employees, which the mother may visit four times a day. These three Acts, with the provident fund and gratuity Acts, the Employment Exchanges Act 1959, the Cine-Workers Welfare Fund Act 1981, the construction workers' cess Act of 1996 and the Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act 2008, are the nine consolidated into the Code on Social Security.

Most Indian workers are informal and outside the contributory schemes. The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (chaired by Arjun Sengupta) documented this and recommended a social security law, and the Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act 2008 followed: it provided for a National Social Security Board and state boards, for schemes on life and disability cover, health and maternity benefits and old-age protection, and for the registration of unorganised workers. The schemes that now matter most are these. The e-Shram portal, launched by the Ministry of Labour and Employment in August 2021, is a national database of unorganised workers, each registered worker receiving a Universal Account Number on an e-Shram card, so that schemes can reach them and benefits can move with them across states. The Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-dhan (PM-SYM), launched in 2019, is a voluntary, contributory pension scheme for unorganised workers aged eighteen to forty with a monthly income of up to ₹15,000 who are not covered by EPF, ESI or the National Pension System: the worker contributes a monthly amount fixed by his age of entry, the Central Government contributes an equal amount, and he receives an assured pension of ₹3,000 a month from the age of sixty. Alongside them sit the Atal Pension Yojana (2015), the life and accident insurance schemes PMJJBY and PMSBY (2015), and Ayushman Bharat–PMJAY (2018) for hospital care.

The Code on Social Security consolidates nine Acts and aims to extend social security towards all workers, organised and unorganised. It keeps the EPF, ESI, gratuity, maternity benefit and employees' compensation schemes in their own chapters; allows ESI coverage to be extended throughout the country and to smaller establishments, including on a voluntary basis; and, for the first time in Indian law, defines "gig workers" (working outside a traditional employer–employee relationship) and "platform workers" (working through an online platform) and provides for schemes for them, financed in part by a contribution from aggregators of one to two per cent of their annual turnover, capped at five per cent of the amount paid or payable to gig and platform workers. A National Social Security Board advises on schemes for unorganised, gig and platform workers, state boards do so for the states, and unorganised, gig and platform workers are to be registered, which the e-Shram database serves. The construction workers' welfare cess and boards and the cine-workers' fund continue under the Code. Its definition of wages carries the 50 per cent rule of the Code on Wages. The Code came into force on 21 November 2025; the schemes and rules under it are being framed and notified in stages, so their current detail should be checked.