Social Security

Abstract

In the federal republic, the social security system is constitutionally founded and includes material security against risks such as illness, accident, loss of earnings during unemployment, supply in case of disability and death of the breadwinner, and pensions, including a long-term care. Positions of life are generated that meet welfare requirements. However, the structural changes of families, the demographic change due to an aging of the population, and the impact of cross-border mobility bring fundamental shifts in welfare demand and financing problems. Within the global modernization process, the creation and promotion of social security has become an internationally recognized fundamental problem. Considerable differences between states can be seen as an expression of available economic resources and the respective political and sociocultural conditions. The development toward a modern social service state should not only be seen from the distribution perspective, with the inclusion of international aid programs. An order of social security, which avoids the risk to degenerate into an all-encompassing welfare bureaucracy, has to offer opportunities for societal self-organization synonymous with self-responsible solutions.