IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/6169.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Security and Retirement in Belgium

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre Pestieau
  • Jean-Philippe Stijns

Abstract

Belgium like many other industrialized countries is facing serious problems in financing its social security. Whereas the effects of aging are still to come, Belgium currently experiences one of the lowest attachments to the labor force of older persons. This paper presents the key features of the Belgian social security system and focuses on labor force participation and benefit receipt. Most of the attention is given to the interaction between retirement behavior and the various social security schemes. By measuring the implicit tax/subsidy rate on work after 55 through these schemes, we can so explain the actual pattern of early and normal retirement of Belgian older workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre Pestieau & Jean-Philippe Stijns, 1997. "Social Security and Retirement in Belgium," NBER Working Papers 6169, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6169
    Note: AG PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w6169.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Diamond, 2004. "Social Security," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 1-24, March.
    2. Pepermans, G, 1992. "Retirement Decisions in a Discrete Choice Model and Implications for the Government Budget: The Case of Belgium," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 5(3), pages 229-243, August.
    3. Jean-Philippe Stijns & Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Willi Leibfritz, 1999. "Generational Accounts for Belgium," NBER Chapters, in: Generational Accounting around the World, pages 161-176, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Gilles Le Garrec, 2001. "Systèmes de retraite par répartition, mode de calcul des droits à pension et croissance," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 67(4), pages 357-380.
    2. Anne-Lore Fraikin & Alain Jousten & Mathieu Lefebvre, 2018. "Social Security Incentives in Belgium: An Analysis of Four Decades of Change," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Reforms and Retirement Incentives, pages 43-78, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Anne-Lore Fraikin & Alain Jousten & Mathieu Lefebvre, 2023. "Trends in Social Security Incentives in Belgium," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: The Effects of Reforms on Retirement Behavior, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Alain Jousten & Mathieu Lefèbvre & Sergio Perelman & Pierre Pestieau, 2010. "The Effects of Early Retirement on Youth Unemployment: The Case of Belgium," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: The Relationship to Youth Employment, pages 47-76, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Casey B. Mulligan, 2000. "Induced Retirement, Social Security, and the Pyramid Mirage," NBER Working Papers 7679, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Alain Jousten & Mathieu Lefebvre & Sergio Perelman, 2014. "Health Status, Disability, and Retirement Incentives in Belgium," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World: Disability Insurance Programs and Retirement, pages 179-209, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Desmet, Raphaël & Jousten, Alain & Perelman, Sergio, 2005. "The Benefits of Separating Early Retirees from the Unemployed: Simulation Results for Belgian Wage Earners," IZA Discussion Papers 1571, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Casey B. Mulligan & Xavier Sala-i-Martín, 2003. "Social security, retirement, and the single-mindedness of the electorate," Economics Working Papers 686, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    9. Arnaud Dellis & Raphaël Desmet & Alain Jousten & Sergio Perelman, 2004. "Micro-Modeling of Retirement in Belgium," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Micro-Estimation, pages 41-98, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Axel Borsch-Supan, 1998. "Incentive Effects of Social Security on Labor Force Participation: Evidence in Germany and Across Europe," NBER Working Papers 6780, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Miles, David, 2000. "Funded and Unfunded Pensions: Risk, Return and Welfare," CEPR Discussion Papers 2369, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Borsch-Supan, Axel, 2000. "Incentive effects of social security on labor force participation: evidence in Germany and across Europe," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 25-49, October.
    13. Mathieu Lefebvre & Kristian Orsini, 2012. "A structural model for early exit of older men in Belgium," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 379-398, August.
    14. Karakaya, Güngör, 2008. "Early cessation of activity in the labour market: impact of supply and demand factors," MPRA Paper 13390, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Casey B. Mulligan & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 1999. "Gerontocracy, retirement, and social security," Economics Working Papers 383, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    16. Kevin Milligan & Tammy Schirle, 2008. "Improving the Labour Market Incentives of Canada's Public Pensions," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 34(3), pages 281-304, September.
    17. BURGGRAEVE Koen & DU CAJU Philip, 2010. "How Do Reference Values for Wages and Wage Indexing Influence the Impact of Labour Tax Reductions?," EcoMod2003 330700028, EcoMod.
    18. Luís Eduardo Afonso & Adriana Schor, 2001. "oferta de Trabalho dos Indivíduos com Idade Superior a 50 Anos: Algumas Características da Década de 90," Anais do XXIX Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 29th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 092, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    19. Christina Behrendt, 1999. "Private Pensions - A Viable Alternative? Distributive Effects of Private Pensions in a Comparative Perspective," LIS Working papers 220, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.

    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. Martin S. Feldstein & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2002. "The Distributional Effects of an Investment-Based Social Security System," NBER Chapters, in: The Distributional Aspects of Social Security and Social Security Reform, pages 263-326, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Robert J. Shiller, 2005. "The Life-Cycle Personal Accounts Proposal for Social Security: An Evaluation," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1504, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    3. Alisdair McKay, 2011. "Household Saving Behavior and Social Security Privatization," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2011-027, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    4. John Geanakoplos & Olivia S. Mitchell & Stephen P. Zeldes, "undated". "Social Security Money's Worth," Pension Research Council Working Papers 97-20, Wharton School Pension Research Council, University of Pennsylvania.
    5. Cremer, Helmuth & De Donder, Philippe & Maldonado, Dario & Pestieau, Pierre, 2007. "Voting over type and generosity of a pension system when some individuals are myopic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(10), pages 2041-2061, November.
    6. Susanne Pech, 2004. "Adverse Selection with individual- and joint-life annuities," Economics working papers 2004-12, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    7. Peter Diamond, 2006. "Reforming Public Pensions in the US and the UK," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(509), pages 94-118, February.
    8. Shiller, Robert J., 1999. "Social security and institutions for intergenerational, intragenerational, and international risk-sharing," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 165-204, June.
    9. Mauro Visaggio, 2019. "Extending the retirement age for preserving the costitutive pension system mission," Public Finance Research Papers 40, Istituto di Economia e Finanza, DSGE, Sapienza University of Rome.
    10. Vittas, Dimitri, 1998. "Institutional investors and securities markets : which comes first?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2032, The World Bank.
    11. Gerhard Glomm & Juergen Jung, 2013. "The Timing of Redistribution," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(1), pages 50-80, July.
    12. Andersen, Torben M. & Bhattacharya, Joydeep & Gestsson, Marias H., 2021. "Pareto-improving transition to fully funded pensions under myopia," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 169-212, June.
    13. Alicia H. Munnell, 2009. "Should social Security Rely Solely On The Payroll Tax?," Issues in Brief ib2009-9-16, Center for Retirement Research, revised Aug 2009.
    14. Peter Diamond, 1993. "Privatization of Social Security: Lessons from Chile," NBER Working Papers 4510, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Felipe Morandé & Raimundo Soto, "undated". "Reformas Económicas en Chile: Una Perspectiva Institucional," ILADES-UAH Working Papers inv121, Universidad Alberto Hurtado/School of Economics and Business.
    16. Casarico, Alessandra & Devillanova, Carlo, 2008. "Capital-skill complementarity and the redistributive effects of Social Security Reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 672-683, April.
    17. Carlos Vidal-Meliá & Inmaculada Domínguez-Fabian, 2005. "The Spanish Pension System: Issues Of Introducing Notional Defined Contribution Accounts," Public Economics 0504006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Jeffrey Brown, 2001. "Are the Elderly Really Over-Annuitized? New Evidence on Life Insurance and Bequests," NBER Chapters, in: Themes in the Economics of Aging, pages 91-126, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Hugo Benítez-Silva & J. Ignacio García-Pérez & Sergi Jiménez-Martín, 2011. "The effects of employment uncertainty and wealth shocks on the labor supply and claiming behavior of older American workers," Economics Working Papers 1275, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    20. Guvenen, Fatih, 2006. "Reconciling conflicting evidence on the elasticity of intertemporal substitution: A macroeconomic perspective," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1451-1472, October.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:6169. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.