Transformation of the State Social Policy in the Current Context: The Lessons of the Pandemic

Abstract

The issues of social policy of the State have recently been in the discourse, in search of its new format. They acquired particular relevance in the context of the globally unfolding coronavirus crisis. The article shows that precisely the coronavirus pandemic has become the impetus for understanding the role and content of social protection of the population, has opened up new opportunities to transform it in search of true goals and instruments of implementation. It is proved that health becomes an urgent object of protection, that the health of society and an individual are mutually conditioned and complementable. Modern risks requiring an adequate response on the part of the State to overcome them are analyzed. In addition to the coronavirus pandemic, digitalization seriously affects humans and society, leading to the displacement of humans from the spheres of employment, transformation of the labor market and blurring of employment boundaries, precarization and unsteady employment. The growing inequality in the world leads to many problems in the social sphere and requires its solution. We are certain that in the conditions of modern, constantly complicating socio-economic development, increasing uncertainty and riskiness, there is an urgent need to develop a new type of social policy in which the most important values should dominate: health of human, access of human to sources of education, health care, consumption of clean water and other socially significant benefits, to decent income and living conditions. Such a system of social protection is in development, its sprouts to varying degrees of dimension and efficiency are formed in different world countries. The lessons learned in the process of combating the pandemic can become a good help in its formation.

Keywords

• social policy
• social protection
• digitalization
• pandemic
• crisis
• inequality
• social support