This report assesses the possibilities of using household surveys to evaluate the performance of social security policies and provides an overview of the available information. Particular attention is paid to indicators on social security coverage and the impact of social security on the living standards of the population. As the data situation in industrialized countries is fairly well known, the focus of this study was on low- and middle-income countries where social security schemes are often immature and cover only small groups of the population. The report additionally includes information on other non-OECD countries, as well as on certain OECD countries that have undergone political and economic transformation over the last decade.