The Impact of Theory of Planned Behavior toward the Intention to Join the Informal Workers Social Security: A Lesson from Indonesia and Taiwan

Abstract

The problem that is currently happening, especially in various developing countries, is the dominance of the number of informal workers in these countries and this number is growing from time to time. However, along with the increasing number of informal workers, protection for them from various social risks is still very limited. The majority of workers in the informal sector are often ignored by the social security system, and the existing social security programs only focus and target workers in the formal sector. Only 56% of Indonesia's 93 million eligible employees are covered by social security, while only 3.7% of informal workers are covered (LIPI, 2020). Due to the low social security participation for informal workers, especially in Indonesia, there needs to be analysis and research to increase the number of this participation. Currently, the social security system for informal workers in Indonesia is included in the Non-Wage Recipient (BPU) program. This program has several products, such as death insurance (mandatory), work accident insurance (mandatory), and old age insurance as a voluntary program. The contribution required in this system is still cheap, starting from Rp. 16.800 (for the two mandatory programs) and increases according to the workers' monthly income. According to the BPJS Law number 24 of 2011, social security in Indonesia is universal, meaning that everyone is required to follow the health program, and every worker, even informal workers, is required to follow the social security system for workers. However, in its implementation, due to inadequate law enforcement, it seems that this system is optional and voluntary. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct further research on the intention of informal workers to register for social security. The measurement of this intention is important to extend social security participation to informal workers because the voluntary participation and control of enrolling in social security is entirely within the control of each of these workers. In Taiwan, the nature is almost the same, participation is voluntary. Taiwan's social security law allows independent contractors, employers with fewer than five employees who are not union members, and self-employed persons who also employ others to voluntarily enroll in social security insurance. This is done because managing workers working in the informal economy is very difficult. The ability to calculate the contribution to be made is one of the biggest challenges because the income earned may fluctuate frequently. Despite these challenges, Taiwan has managed to provide all its workers with social security coverage. So Indonesia needs to learn a lot from this to expand the coverage of social security for informal workers. Then, the study aims to identify the driving forces behind informal workers' desire to enroll in social security programs. To find the factors, the Theory of Planned Behavior will serve as tools to unearth those. The purpose of this study is to determine which factors have the greatest effect on the intention to participate in the social security system for informal workers. This study also compares the results of this study with the policies that have been taken by Indonesia and Taiwan as a comparison country with broad social security coverage and analyzing the success strategy that is taken by Taiwan to broaden its coverage on social security for workers. The study uses primary data obtained from respondents. There are 100 respondents used in this study. The respondents must meet the following criteria: a) they must be "the missing middle" of informal workers, b) informal workers who are neither government or other private institution recipients of social assistance, and c) who do not have any other form of social insurance except public social insurance. Data are examined by using structural equation model - partial least square (SEM-PLS). The results show that attitude toward behavior and perceived behavioral control have a significant impact on the intention to join the informal workers' social security, while subjective norms have not been proven to have a significant impact. In terms of policy comparison, Indonesia is currently still focusing on the subjective norms aspect compared to Taiwan which does not focus on this aspect. In fact, if we look at this study, subjective norms are not significant to the intention of informal workers to register for social security for informal workers. The lesson that can be taken by Taiwan is to transform from the informal economy to the formal economy. This is the key to Taiwan's success in realizing universal coverage in the country. Several ways to achieve this transformation are through various strategies such as education for informal workers, a more practical tax system (Simpler with no or minimal exemptions and loopholes, and lower rates), providing access to banks to make loans, easier business licensing processes, and support informal workers to build a union in order to share with each other to help reduce informality. The managerial implication that can be obtained from this research is to focus on the strategy on the aspect of attitude toward behavior by increasing the positive opinion of informal workers on social security by improving services from social security and aspects of perceived behavioral control by adding additional benefits for informal workers who comply to contribute to social security. The strategy on the subjective norms aspect needs to be evaluated and reviewed on its effectiveness and efficiency with respect to the budget used in implementing the strategy in this aspect.