IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/6225.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Pension policy in EU25 and its possible impact on elderly poverty

Author

Listed:
  • Zaidi, Asghar
  • Grech, Aaron George
  • Fuchs, Michael

Abstract

This paper reviews changes in pension policies in EU countries between 1995 and 2005 and describes how they might affect risk of poverty for future pensioner populations. The pension landscape in Europe has changed considerably in the past decade and the paper highlights commonalities as well as differences in pension reforms across these countries. A common trend is that the retirement incomes drawn from the public pension systems are on the decline, the changes are likely to shift more risks towards individuals, and there are fewer possibilities of redistribution in favour of the lower income individuals. The paper includes exploratory projections of how the risk of elderly poverty might evolve in the future. The countries where the benefit ratio is set to decline significantly, as expected, would see at-risk-poverty rates increase quite substantially, especially during the period 2025-2050, when the bulk of the decline is expected. This analysis points towards the importance of a more comprehensive assessment of the reforms, in particular in their impact on vulnerable groups (such as women and disabled people with disruptive work history) and in the clarity of the signals they give to individuals in extending their working career if they want to avoid greater risks of poverty during retirement.

Suggested Citation

  • Zaidi, Asghar & Grech, Aaron George & Fuchs, Michael, 2006. "Pension policy in EU25 and its possible impact on elderly poverty," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 6225, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:6225
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/6225/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grech, Aaron George, 2007. "Pension policy in EU25 and its impact on pension benefits," MPRA Paper 33669, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Chlon, Agnieszka, 2000. "Pension reform and public information in Poland," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 23142, The World Bank.
    3. Gábor Orbán & Dániel Palotai, 2005. "The sustainability of the Hungarian pension system: a reassessment," MNB Occasional Papers 2005/40, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary).
    4. Giuseppe Carone, 2005. "Long-Term Labour Force Projections for the 25 EU Member States:A set of data for assessing the economic impact of ageing," Labor and Demography 0512006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Whitehouse, Edward, 2000. "Paying for pensions: An international comparison of administrative charges in funded retirement-income systems," MPRA Paper 14171, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Markus Knell, 2005. "Demographic Fluctuations, Sustainability Factors and Intergenerational Fairness – An Assessment of Austria's New Pension System," Monetary Policy & the Economy, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue 1, pages 23-42.
    7. Wehlau, Diana & Sommer, Jörg, 2004. "Pension policies after EU enlargement: Between financial market integration and sustainability of public finances," Working papers of the ZeS 10/2004, University of Bremen, Centre for Social Policy Research (ZeS).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. EL-HOUJJAJI, Hind & ECHAOUI, Abdellah, 2020. "Assessing the financial sustainability of parametric pension system reforms: The case of Morocco," MPRA Paper 98912, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Grech, Aaron George, 2010. "Assessing the sustainability of pension reforms in Europe," MPRA Paper 27407, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Aaron George Grech, 2013. "How best to measure pension adequacy," CASE Papers case172, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    4. Grech, Aaron George, 2012. "Evaluating the possible impact of pension reforms on future living standards in Europe," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51296, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Arie Kapteyn & Jinkook Lee & Gema Zamarro, 2013. "Does Retirement Induced through Social Security Pension Eligibility Influence Subjective Well-being? A Cross-Country Comparison," Working Papers wp301, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    6. Salvador Barrios & Flavia Coda Moscarola & Francesco Figari & Luca Gandullia, 2020. "Size and distributional pattern of pension-related tax expenditures in European countries," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(5), pages 1287-1320, October.
    7. Jinkook Lee & Drystan Phillips, 2011. "Income and Poverty among Older Koreans Relative Contributions of and Relationship between Public and Family Transfers," Working Papers WR-852, RAND Corporation.
    8. Dekkers, Gijs, 2008. "Are the old poor? A discussion and some cursory evidence," MPRA Paper 29436, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Grech, Aaron George, 2006. "Elderly poverty in EU25," MPRA Paper 33618, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Figari, Francesco & Matsaganis, Manos & Sutherland, Holly, 2011. "The financial well-being of older people in Europe and the redistributive effects of minimum pension schemes," EUROMOD Working Papers EM7/11, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    11. Grech, Aaron George, 2007. "Pension policy in EU25 and its impact on pension benefits," MPRA Paper 33669, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Inhoe Ku & Wonjin Lee & Seoyun Lee, 2021. "Declining Family Support, Changing Income Sources, and Older People Poverty: Lessons from South Korea," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 47(4), pages 965-996, December.
    13. Rod Hick, 2009. "The SocialWelfare Pensions in Ireland: Pensioner Poverty and Gender," Working Papers 200902, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    14. Poteraj, Jarosław, 2008. "Pension systems in 27 EU countries," MPRA Paper 31053, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Peeters, Marga, 2011. "“Better Safe than Sorry” - Individual Risk-free Pension Schemes in the European Union - Macroeconomic Benefits, the Mobile Working Citizen’s Perspective and Why Nots," MPRA Paper 33571, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Vandeninden, Frieda, 2012. "A Simulation of Social Pensions in Europe," MERIT Working Papers 2012-008, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    17. Aaron George, Grech, 2014. "Pension policy design: The core issues," MPRA Paper 53662, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Poteraj, Jarosław, 2007. "Systemy emerytalne w Europie - Cypr [Pension systems in Europe - Cyprus]," MPRA Paper 33159, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. repec:cep:sticas:/161 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Marga Peeters, 2012. "Better Safe than Sorry - Individual Risk-free Pension Schemes in the European Union," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 6(3), September.
    21. repec:cep:sticas:/172 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Grech, Aaron George, 2007. "Pension policy in EU25 and its impact on pension benefits," MPRA Paper 33669, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Grech, Aaron George, 2015. "Pension reforms in the 1990s and during the financial crisis: More of the same?," MPRA Paper 66894, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. repec:cep:sticas:/161 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Grech, Aaron George, 2012. "Evaluating the possible impact of pension reforms on future living standards in Europe," MPRA Paper 39851, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Grech, Aaron George, 2014. "Evaluating the possible impact of pension reforms on elderly poverty in Europe," MPRA Paper 57639, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Raffelhüschen, Bernd & Hagist, Christian & Moog, Stefan & Vatter, Johannes, 2009. "Ehrbare Staaten? Die deutsche Generationenbilanz im internationalen Vergleich," Argumente zur Marktwirtschaft und Politik 107, Stiftung Marktwirtschaft / The Market Economy Foundation, Berlin.
    7. Serguei Kaniovski & Thomas Url & Helmut Hofer & Sandra Müllbacher, 2013. "A Long-run Macroeconomic Model of the Austrian Economy (A-LMM). New Results," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46830, April.
    8. Yen-hsin Alice Cheng & Elke Loichinger, 2017. "The Future Labor Force of an Aging Taiwan: The Importance of Education and Female Labor Supply," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 36(3), pages 441-466, June.
    9. Grech, Aaron George, 2010. "Assessing the sustainability of pension reforms in Europe," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 43865, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Thomas Horvath & Helmut Mahringer, 2014. "Einfluss von Bildungsexpansion und Pensionsreformen auf die Erwerbsbeteiligung. Prognose der Erwerbsquote und des Arbeitskräfteangebotes bis 2030," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 87(6), pages 411-426, June.
    11. Fenge, Robert & Peglow, François, 2018. "Decomposition of demographic effects on the german pension system," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 61-76.
    12. Christine Mayrhuber & Gerhard Rünstler & Thomas Url & Werner Eichhorst & Michael J. Kendzia & Maarten Gerard & Connie Nielsen, 2011. "Pension Systems in the EU. Contingent Liabilities and Assets in the Public and Private Sector," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 43938, April.
    13. Jensen, Henning Tarp, 2009. "General equilibrium impact evaluation of road sector investment programs in Ghana," Conference papers 331858, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    14. Raffelhüschen, Bernd & Moog, Stefan & Müller, Christoph, 2010. "Ehrbare Staaten? Die deutsche Generationenbilanz im internationalen Vergleich: Wie gut ist Deutschland auf die demografische Herausforderung vorbereitet?," Argumente zur Marktwirtschaft und Politik 110, Stiftung Marktwirtschaft / The Market Economy Foundation, Berlin.
    15. Luciano Greco, 2005. "The Optimal Design of Funded Pension Plans: Unbundling Financing and Investment," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0003, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    16. Cem Baslevent & Hasan Kirmanoglu, 2015. "Quality of government, egalitarianism, and welfare state attitudes," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(4), pages 2877-2887.
    17. Elke Loichinger & Alexia Prskawetz, 2017. "Changes in economic activity: The role of age and education," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 36(40), pages 1185-1208.
    18. Giuseppe Carone & Cécile Denis & Kieran Mc Morrow & Gilles Mourre & Werner Röger, 2006. "Long-term labour productivity and GDP projections for the EU25 Member States : a production function framework," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 253, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    19. Abigail Marie Rapa, "undated". "A cohort approach to project the labour participation rate in Malta," CBM Policy Papers PP/04/2019, Central Bank of Malta.
    20. Jan Hagemejer & Krzysztof Makarski & Joanna Tyrowicz, 2015. "Unprivatizing the pension system: the case of Poland," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(8), pages 833-852, February.
    21. Figari, Francesco & Matsaganis, Manos & Sutherland, Holly, 2011. "The financial well-being of older people in Europe and the redistributive effects of minimum pension schemes," EUROMOD Working Papers EM7/11, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social Security and Public Pensions; Retirement; Retirement Policies; Private Pensions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:6225. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.