Abstract: The social policy of any state has its early origins in the Poverty Act of 1601 in England and in the Bismarck Social Insurance Scheme of 1889 in Germany. The law laid the foundation for modern social security, while Bismarck’s work laid the foundations for social insurance: a certain amount of social costs was deducted from taxes and was directed to all segments of the population. It is important to mention that the essence of these costs was political rather than an economic, for instance, only a few lived to retirement age: in those days it was 70 years with a life expectancy of 40 years.

Since the middle of the XX-th century, the governments of the world’s leading countries have introduced a policy of so-called «general welfare», which has contributed to the rapid economic development of Western Europe and the ability to direct more and more funds to social needs [1].

Nowadays, social protection of citizens has been recognized at the international level as one of the fundamental human rights — both in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 (Art. 22) and in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1976 ( Art. 9). The Constitutions of more than 110 independent states refer to the right of citizens to receive social protection in one form or another. However, the data analyzed in the article show that in today’s world, and especially in developing countries, social protection, ensuring certain standards of living standards and quality of life are not at the appropriate level. Certainly, the global financial crisis as well as the coronavirus pandemic have a major impact. Nevertheless, over time their effects become less tangible and countries will pay more attention to the social protection of their populations, as their wellbeing is directly related to the welfare of the state.

In the conditions of economic crisis, production decline, inflation, decline in living standards of a large part of the population in Ukraine, domestic modern social insurance against of various social risks is unsatisfactory, does not meet current requirements and needs improvement. At the same time, taking into account the experience of other countries, Ukraine must build a model of social protection of its population, which would correspond to its own traditions and the ability of the national economy to provide funding for the obligations assumed by the state.