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Retirement Saving in Australia

Author

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  • Garry Barrett
  • Yi-Ping Tseng

Abstract

Australia’s retirement income system has several distinctive features – most notably a policy of government mandated private saving and a means-tested Age Pension – which have gained increasing international attention. This paper provides an overview of the institutional features of the retirement income system in Australia, including details of the development and operation of the policy of forced retirement saving. The role of the different tiers of system in accounting for the income of the current cohort of seniors is examined using the Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Expenditure Survey. The economic position of adjacent, younger cohorts is also considered. The final section canvasses a selection of reform proposals emerging from the public debate over the future of Australia’s retirement income system.

Suggested Citation

  • Garry Barrett & Yi-Ping Tseng, 2007. "Retirement Saving in Australia," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 177, McMaster University.
    • Handle: RePEc:mcm:sedapp:177
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    File URL: http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/sedap/p/sedap177.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bateman,Hazel & Kingston,Geoffrey & Piggott,John, 2001. "Forced Saving," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521481625, September.
      • Bateman,Hazel & Kingston,Geoffrey & Piggott,John, 2001. "Forced Saving," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521484718, September.
    2. Hazel Bateman & John Piggott, 1997. "Private Pensions in OECD Countries: Australia," OECD Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Papers 23, OECD Publishing.
    3. Productivity Commission, 2005. "Economic Implications of an Ageing Australia," Research Reports, Productivity Commission, Government of Australia, number 16.
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    5. Feldstein, Martin S, 1974. "Social Security, Induced Retirement, and Aggregate Capital Accumulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(5), pages 905-926, Sept./Oct.
    6. Bateman, Hazel & Piggott, John, 2001. "Australia's mandatory retirement saving policy : a view from the new millennium," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 23160, The World Bank.
    7. Orazio P. Attanasio & Agar Brugiavini, 2003. "Social Security and Households' Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1075-1119.
    8. Ellis Connolly & Marion Kohler, 2004. "The Impact of Superannuation on Household Saving," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2004-01, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    9. Malcolm Edey & John Simon, 1996. "Australia's Retirement Income System: Implications for Saving and Capital Markets," NBER Working Papers 5799, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Productivity Commission, 2005. "Economic Implications of an Ageing Australia," Labor and Demography 0506001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Orazio P. Attanasio & Susann Rohwedder, 2003. "Pension Wealth and Household Saving: Evidence from Pension Reforms in the United Kingdom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1499-1521, December.
    12. Myles, John, 2000. "The Maturation of Canada's Retirement Income System: Income Levels, Income Inequality and Low Income Among the Elderly," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2000147e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
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    Cited by:

    1. Todd Morris, 2022. "Re-examining female labor supply responses to the 1994 Australian pension reform," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 419-445, June.
    2. Kadir Atalay & Garry F. Barrett & Peter Siminski, 2019. "Pension incentives and the joint retirement of couples: evidence from two natural experiments," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 735-767, July.
    3. Geoffrey Kingston & Susan Thorp, 2019. "Superannuation in Australia: A Survey of the Literature," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 95(308), pages 141-160, March.
    4. Deborah A. Cobb‐Clark & Vincent A. Hildebrand, 2011. "Portfolio Allocation In The Face Of A Means‐Tested Public Pension," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 57(3), pages 536-560, September.
    5. Zhu, Rong, 2016. "Retirement and its consequences for women's health in Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 117-125.
    6. Atalay, Kadir & Barrett, Garry F., 2016. "Pension Incentives and the Retirement Decisions of Couples," IZA Discussion Papers 10013, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Meliyanni Johar, 2017. "The Evolution of Out-of-Hospital Medical Costs to and through Retirement," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 36(1), pages 17-31, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    retirement income; social security; forced saving;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

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