Sustainability of the social protection programs also poses serious challenges
to redistributive policy in Southeast Asia. The contribution rates (by employees
and employers) for social protection programs are rather low in some Southeast
Asian countries, at 4% for Myanmar, 9.5% for the Lao PDR, 10.2% for Thailand,
and 12.9% for the Philippines (Table 14.5). The low contributions imply that the
social protection programs depend largely on government funding and are thus
susceptible to availability of fiscal space. For instance, in the aftermath of the
Asian financial crisis in 1997/1998 and the global financial crisis in 2008/2009,
there was a sharp cutback in government spending on social transfer programs in
Thailand and the Philippines.