Risky Business - Political and Economic Consequences of Employment Insecurity

The early twenty-first century is witnessing a concerted effort to privatize risk-to shift responsibility for the management or mitigation of key risks onto private-sector organizations or directly onto individuals. Proposals to reform Social Security through the creation of private accounts are perhaps the leading example, but in a wide range of areas, similar trends are now playing out. Yet, ironically, pensions and other private systems for responding to risk also face severe challenges-and often for the same reason that public systems do: the risks that characterize our society and economy have changed more rapidly than the institutions designed to deal with them. From the burdens on pension funds caused by population aging to the pressures on corporate and government health programs created by rapidly rising medical costs, the institutions of risk management are increasingly buffeted by new and intensified pressures that are reshaping how all of us experience and deal with risk.