Modeling Pension Reforms and Estimating Implicit Pension Debt

The article reviews the major structures of pension schemes, their classification, prerequisites, and the reasons for pension reforms. Special attention is given to implicit pension debt as a tool for estimating future government obligations. The main principles of implicit debt estimation and a short review of its implementation are discussed.     

城市计生家庭的养老模式与养老储备

本文采用问卷调查的方式,考察计生父母对养老的看法,主要研究现阶段的养老储备、对未来养老的担心方面、养老意愿以及老年自养观念的倾向。从而进一步研究现阶段城市计生父母对未来养老的意愿,并发现其中所面临的问题和主导的养老趋势,更好地为今后的养老问题做决策。     

Pension reform in Sweden

Pension reform has been placed on the political agenda in many countries. The Swedish parliament has decided to make significant changes in the pension system. This article presents the Swedish pension reform, which goes further than the changes in other European countries. According to the Swedish pension reform, there will be a guaranteed pension that redistributes life-cycle incomes from rich to poor and an income-related actuarial pension without any intra- and intergenerational redistributive effects (with a few exceptions). The idea is to have an actuarial contribution-defined pension within a pay-as-you-go system.     

养老金并轨实施办法

正近日,北京市政府公报公布了《北京市机关事业单位工作人员养老保险制度改革实施办法》。截至目前,全国已有26个省区落实了养老金并轨改革。根据《办法》规定,基本养老保险费由单位和个人共同负担。单位缴费比例为参加养老保险工作人员个人缴费工资基数之和的20%,个人缴费比例为本人缴费工资基数的8%,由单位代扣。此外,机关事业单位工作人员按本人缴费工资基数的8%建立基本养老保险个人账户。个人账户储存额只能用于养老,不得提前支     

Labor Mobility Without Pension Portability: Migrant Workers’ Endangered Pension Entitlement in China

This paper investigates migrant workers’ endangered pension entitlement in China from a perspective of political economy. The decentralized pension governance structure in China led to limited portability of the urban pension program. The movement of migrant workers challenges this decentralized governance structure, and have also produced clear winner and loser provinces in the pension program. This study argues that the interests of migrant‐receiving provinces, the winners, became a major obstacle in reforms that sought to address the pension portability problem. The migrant workers’ pension issue has in fact contributed to inter‐regional welfare inequality. This resulting inter‐regional inequality makes any central government's plan on centralizing the pension program a challenging task.     

The Impact of Neo-liberalism on South Korea's Public Pension: A Political Economy of Pension Reform

This article examines the recent Korean pension reforms from a political economy perspective. It argues that these reforms are of particular interest because, unlike major pay-as-you-go pension schemes in Europe, the Korean pension scheme is a funded one and, therefore, is subject to market exposure. Also in contrast to the problems that public pension reforms have encountered in European and other OECD countries, especially 'blame avoidance', the more radical Korean reforms were implemented without significant challenge or resistance. First of all, the National Pension Scheme is described prior to the 1997 Asian economic crisis. Then the impact of this crisis on the Korean welfare state and, especially, its pension system are analysed. The main part of the article consists of a political economy of the pension reform process, in which the key roles of the international governmental organizations and the domestic neo-liberal policy elite are pinpointed. This neo-liberal ideology was critical in developing and sustaining an influential discourse on the 'crisis' in Korea's national pension fund. The article concludes by arguing, against the neo-liberal tide, for the inclusion of a pay-as-you-go element in the national pension in order to tackle escalating poverty in old age.     

Assessing Pension System Reforms in Latin America

During the 1980s and 1990s sweeping structural changes were made to social security systems in a number of Latin American countries. This paper aims to assess the impact of those reforms, showing their possible limitations, risks and internal malfunctions. The impact on the following will be considered: (a) coverage; (b) risks and uncertainty; (c) redistributive aspects; (d) savings; and (e) the administration and management costs of the new system.     

Pension Reforms in Europe and Life-course Politics

In recent years, somewhat drastic pension reforms have taken place in all European countries. The pension systems developed in the last century are no longer considered to be suited to the changing demographic constellations in European countries, and the financial sustainability of these systems is under threat. Moreover, the changing political and economic set‐up in European countries is also used to justify reforming the different pension systems. Different reasons can be given to explain the various pension reform measures without, however, there being any integrated coherence. We suggest that a politics of social policy, and of pension policy in particular, based on a life‐course perspective, facilitates the understanding of the whole range of pension reform measures. In the past, the elaborated pension systems were attuned to a normative standard biography. A new standard biography, with different phases and more transitions and combinations, enables one to understand the variety of the ongoing pension reform measures. Such a life‐course perspective integrates sequences of learning, working and caring considered necessary for the polity. In other words, it is based on a conception of human potential, and it integrates, to some extent, the previously separate domains of labour market policy, education policy, care policy and pension policy. However, recent theoretical and empirical studies of the life course lead to a critical evaluation of the new standard biography, with the conclusion that the new standard is one‐sided and scientifically unsound, entailing challenges for social policy.     

关于退休金制度的改革问题——信息分析述评

在人类社会步入21世纪之际，老龄社会的来临已是不争的事实。为此，退休金制度的改革，在大多数国家，不论是发达国家，还是发展中国家和转轨经济国家，都已提上议事日程。本文着重介绍世界各国老年人收入保障的几种方法，以及世界各国退休金制度的改革经验和发展趋势。     

The Current Situation of Retirement Income Provisions in Japan: Social Security Pension Schemes and Corporate Pension Plans

Japan has been faced with rapid population ageing for decades. This has continuously reduced the level of social security pension benefits. Based on this it is often said that corporate pension plans should play a wider role forward in providing retirement benefits. However, we also have to know that there is a limit to what corporate pension plans can do in place of the social security pension schemes. In this paper we extract lessons from the history of social security pension schemes in our country and try to define the roles of corporate pension plans and social security pension schemes. In conclusion we should keep adequacy of social security pension benefits even if the contribution rate becomes a bit higher. Corporate pension plans just enrich people's life in retirement. We have to remember that corporate pension plans were not certain means for reducing the poverty in old age and that for this reason social security pension schemes by social insurance were invented.     

"Risk" and UK Pension Reform

“Risk” is a word that has become common currency in the financial services industry in general, and in the pensions industry in particular. This article critically examines its use in the context of the current debate about UK pension reform. “Risk” is used by a broad spectrum of interests to discuss a wide range of pension issues in a variety of contexts. The article outlines key theoretical perspectives on the nature and construction, or conceptualization, of risk. Their relevance to debate and policy initiatives, particularly public pension policy, is examined. It is suggested that current government policy is failing to carry with it those to whom the policy applies; that reforms implicitly, if not explicitly, underestimate the importance of “security”; and that failure to conduct a much broader debate about the fundamental notions of work, retirement, saving and security may simply condemn the UK to interminable pension reform.     

The World Bank Approach to Pension Reform

This paper highlights the World Bank's thinking and worldwide involvement in pension reform. Both are driven by the Bank's mandate to help countries develop economically and to reduce poverty. The Bank has four key concerns in working with clients on pension policy: (1) short-term financing and long-term financial viability; (2) effects on economic growth; (3) adequacy and other distributive issues; and (4) political risk and sustainability. In response to these concerns and after review of the three main reform options for unfunded systems - mere PAYG reform, a rapid and complete shift to a mandatory funded system, and a gradual shift to a multipillar scheme - the Bank clearly favours the multipillar approach but in a pragmatic and country-specific manner. When helping to implement a pension reform the Bank fully takes account of country preferences and circumstances, bases its support on sound reform criteria, links the client assistance with knowledge management, provides training and other measures to enhance the reform capacity of a country, and seeks cooperation with other international institutions. In addition, the Bank has a comprehensive research agenda to improve the working of multipillar schemes, and the investigations include issues of coverage, administrative costs and annuities.     

Comparing the Pension Promises of 30 OECD Countries

This paper takes a microeconomic approach to compare prospective pension benefits in the 30 OECD countries. It shows entitlements gross and net of taxes and social security contributions for male and female single workers based on 2002 pension rules and parameters. The models cover all public and private mandatory sources of retirement income for full‐career private‐sector workers across a broad earnings range. The paper shows that average earners in OECD countries can expect a post‐tax pension of about 70 per cent of their earnings after tax. The average minimum retirement benefit is just under 29 per cent of national average earnings.     

Pension insurance and the participation of private enterprise

One of the principal developments of our time in the field of social security policy has been the growing importance of the desire of individuals for greater economic security in their old age. This desire has in its turn given rise to an increasing tendency to seek benefits complementing those offered or promised by public social insurance schemes. In Europe and North America private enterprise has for many years played an active role in the field of complementary provident arrangements; but in the countries of Latin America interest in schemes of this kind has only begun to develop in recent years. A study of the present situation shows a need to establish concepts permitting an objective approach to the problem of whether — and ultimately, how — a modern State can succeed in striking a satisfactory balance between public intervention and private enterprise in the field of provision against deferred risks or, if it cannot do so, what the prospects are for the securing of a better future by present-day society and how that goal could be achieved. A reform of provident systems in Latin America is inevitable. The difficulty lies in determining how to reorganize public systems so as to ensure their continuance and to entrust them with the principal role in ensuring social solidarity while at the same time opening up opportunities for free private complementary insurance.     

日本公共养老金制度改革评析

日本从20世纪60年代初实现了"全民皆年金"以来,经过多次改革,养老金制度不断完善。随着人口出生率的下降和老年人口的增加,日本人口老龄化问题日趋严重,社会保障费用支出过大,养老金制度也受到了严峻挑战。日本历届政府都把养老金制度改革作为一项主要任务。2000年以来,日本又根据新的社会经济形势对养老金制度进行了进一步的改革。本文对进入21世纪后日本公共养老金制度的改革及面临的课题做了初步的探讨和分析。