There is an ongoing debate in OECD countries on how to provide social insurance coverage for non-standard workers. A possible solution is government subsidised voluntary social insurance. Such programs are common in Sweden. However, voluntary social insurance programs for non-standard workers – notably unemployment insurance – face several challenges that need to be addressed for such programs to function satisfactorily. The most salient is how the risk of voluntary quits is managed. This chapter reviews how Swedish social insurance programs square with non-standard work arrangements. It finds that the bar to access voluntary unemployment insurance is higher for non-standard workers, mainly since it is hard to establish that a job loss is involuntary. Non-standard workers are also not covered in collective bargained social insurance schemes, most notably occupational pensions, which account for 25% of total pensions. A further conclusion is that for voluntary programs to work, the rate of subsidies provided by the government must be sufficiently high. Data from Sweden show that otherwise premiums will be high causing insurance coverage to fall.
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