Decoupling of social rights

Decoupling of social rights refers to separating social rights from the employment relationship and linking them to citizenship. In practice, this would mean loosening the connection between specific work activity and the accumulation of social rights. One argument is that with the effective end of a job for life and the demise of internal labour markets, employees have potentially reduced the ability to accumulate rights. Decoupling of social rights is a safeguard against this scenario by creating a link between lifetime employment and social rights, for example connecting pensions and mobility. In other words, social rights would become transferable from one job to another.