Survey Findings Synthesis Report

Author: Farah Al Shami, Senior Fellow and Social Protection Program Director – Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)

This report presents the quantitative research findings of a field survey conducted under the FORWARD project, “Assessing the Future of Work for Forward-Looking Universal Social Protection: A Comparative Study of Lebanon and Egypt” and the Finance4All project, “Alternative Financing for Universal Social Protection in the Arab Region”. It examines how two profound structural forces reshaping contemporary labor markets, characterized by the rapid acceleration of digital technologies and the transition to a low-carbon economy, are colliding with decades of entrenched neoliberal economic policy and fiscal austerity. This collision is not only fundamentally transforming the nature of work but also ruthlessly exposing the severe inadequacy of existing, fragmented social protection systems, suggesting a dire need to reform these systems and find alternative mechanisms to finance such reforms.

Committed to open, transparent research and publicly accessible data, this report serves as an exhaustive analytical synthesis of the survey dataset. The statistical distributions and cross-tabulations within this report converge on a singular, urgent analytical premise: sweeping labor market transformations are unfolding within structurally informal economies, governed by outdated labor frameworks and weakened social security institutions. The data reveals a massive “Missing Middle,” with nearly 69% of the surveyed population excluded from formal, salaried employment, leaving them navigating the labor market without institutional safeguards. This precarity is deeply intersectional and compounded by a “poly-crisis.” Nearly four in ten workers are simultaneously battling the cascading fallout of digitalization, decarbonization, and State austerity, in parallel with other economic shocks, conflicts, climate change, and natural disasters. Yet, findings quantify a profound social protection deficit, with approximately 43% of the workforce found to be systematically excluded from any form of social transfer – a vulnerability that disproportionately impacts women, informal workers, and persons with disabilities, migrants and refugees, among others.

In the absence of State-led support, households are forced to absorb these macro-financial shocks through severe debt accumulation and reliance on informal coping mechanisms. Yet, despite this systemic precarity, the data illuminates a clear grassroots mandate for structural reform: a resounding 58.6% of respondents actively demand adequate, universal social protection decoupled from employment status, alongside massive calls for State-supported reskilling infrastructure to help workers transition securely into the new digital and green economies. Given that conventional funding frameworks are insufficient to facilitate necessary structural socioeconomic reforms or mitigate the erosion of social protection amid ongoing labor market transitions, identifying alternative financing mechanisms emerges as an urgent policy priority. The disproportionate impact on vulnerable social groups and the emergence of new forms of vulnerability make this ask even more imperative.

The value of this report lies in the specificity with which it quantifies the survey findings, measuring the scale of each macroeconomic transition not as an abstract shift, but as a lived reality affecting the livelihoods and fiscal space of specific communities. While the report does not interpret these findings, it provides an analytical snapshot of the most salient results, laying the ground for more in-depth analyses triangulated by qualitative data that was collected through other research methods. In doing so, the report, despite being extensive, can be considered a brain teaser to further explore the raw quantitative data and conduct different or deeper forms of analysis. The original, raw dataset, along with the enclosed language sheet, sampling framework and sample, and questionnaire of the underlying survey study can be accessed via this link.

To read the full synthesis: Click here!