Multi-Pillared Social Insurance Systems: The Post-Reform Picture in Chile, Uruguay and Brazil

Abstract

This article focuses on an analysis of social insurance models and reforms in Chile, Uruguay and Brazil. Noting that these three countries are following different reform trajectories, the article explores trends in the restructuring of each of these insurance systems across the course of successive reforms. In the systems, different trends are supporting a closer link between contributions and benefits, according growing importance to private individual accounts and favouring the expansion of the role played by social assistance. These trends all suggest a move towards various forms of multi-pillared social insurance, but with uncertain results in terms of redistribution and the dynamics of the fundamental objectives of social insurance.