India’s Social Security Opportunity

With Labour Codes and digital public infrastructure converging, India has a rare chance to build a universal, portable and technology-driven social security system

- G MADHUMITA DAS

Social security systems play a central role in reducing poverty, enhancing resilience, and promoting equitable development.

Universal social security coverage allows every resident, regardless of income, employment status, or demographic characteristics, access to a minimum set of social protections such as pensions, healthcare, unemployment benefits, or disability support. India is closer than ever to building a universal social security system—something most nations, even the most developed ones, took decades of sustained investment to achieve.

With the Labour Codes, especially the Code on Social Security, 2020, the country has the legislative architecture to protect every worker, from gig drivers to factory employees to migrant construction labourers. The Code on Social Security consolidates nine major laws into a single framework. This helps in reducing the administrative complexity, improves portability of benefits, simplifies compliance for employers and strengthens monitoring and enforcement, increasing the likelihood that workers—especially those in smaller enterprises in the informal sector where 90% of India’s workers are employed—can receive benefits without bureaucratic hurdles.

The code also allows the government to extend coverage of Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), Maternity benefits and Gratuity for enterprises in all sectors, for the benefit of hitherto uncovered workers and encourage voluntary enrolment in smaller establishments. It provides for a National Social Security Fund/State Social Security Funds, where Government funding, CSR funding, contributions from employers, and workers can be collected, which can support social security coverage.