January 2021

29Jan

US. Pandemic Widens Retirement Planning Gender Gap

The pandemic has widened the gender gap for retirement planning, and women investors are less optimistic, more concerned and less prepared to protect assets than their male counterparts, according to a new survey. “Women are concerned about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their finances and the resulting uncertainty can make planning for the future — and their retirement — more difficult,” Ann Bair, senior vice president of marketing for Nationwide Financial, said in a statement about the...

January 29, 2021
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29Jan

Australia’s pension assets fall for first time since 2009- regulator

Australia’s pension assets decreased for the first time in a decade in the financial year ending June 2020, as workers withdrew on their savings to weather the coronavirus crisis, the sector regulator said in a report on Friday. Total assets in superannuation funds, as retirement funds are called in Australia, were A$2.9 trillion ($2.2 trillion) at June 30, down 0.41%, after growing every year since 2009 from A$1 billion, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) said. Lump sum payments...

January 29, 2021
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29Jan

UK. Pension Minister Urges Treasury For Retirement Changes But The Self-Employed May Miss Out | Personal Finance | Finance

Pension holders, particularly outlined contribution (DC) members, may utilise a pensions recommendation allowance which is meant to permit members and beneficiaries of DC pension schemes and hybrid pension preparations with money steadiness advantages or different cash buy advantages to take £500 from their scheme to redeem towards the price of retirement monetary recommendation, with out incurring an unauthorised fee tax cost. Yesterday, Guy Opperman, the Pensions Minister, referred to as for the treasury to extend the allowance additional. During...

January 29, 2021
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29Jan

Unearned Income and Labor Supply: Evidence from Survivor Pensions in Austria

By René Böheim, Michael Topf We study the effect of lower unearned income on labor supply. To identify the causal effect of an unexpected reduction in unearned income, we exploit a policy reform that lowered survivor pensions in Austria. Men widowed after the survivor pension reform received an approximately 34% lower survivor pension than men widowed before the reform. We follow the employment history of both groups for 150 months and estimate the reform’s effect on labor supply using...

January 29, 2021
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29Jan

Robots and Labor in the Service Sector: Evidence from Nursing Homes

By Karen Eggleston, Yong Suk Lee, Toshiaki Iizuka In one of the first studies of service sector robotics using establishment-level data, we study the impact of robots on staffing in Japanese nursing homes, using geographic variation in robot subsidies as an instrumental variable. We find that robot adoption increases employment by augmenting the number of care workers and nurses on flexible employment contracts, and decreases difficulty in staff retention. Robot adoption also reduces the monthly wages of regular nurses,...

January 29, 2021
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29Jan

Portfolio Management for Insurers and Pension Funds and COVID-19: Targeting Volatility for Equity, Balanced and Target-Date Funds with Leverage Constraints

By Bao Huy Doan, Jonathan J. Reeves, Michael Sherris Insurers and pension funds face the challenges of historically low interest rates and volatility in equity markets, that have been accentuated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent advances in equity portfolio management with a target volatility have been shown to deliver improved on average risk adjusted return, after transaction costs. This paper studies these targeted volatility portfolios in applications to equity, balanced and target-date funds with varying constraints on leverage....

January 29, 2021
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28Jan

Peru Congress Edges Closer to Giving State Control Over Pensions

A Peruvian congressional committee approved a bill to overhaul the country’s pension system, triggering warnings from the fund-management industry that the government will get control of billions of dollars of private savings. Read also Coronavirus throwing retirement systems into a deepening hole Lawmakers on the pension reform committee voted 6-2 in favor of legislation late Tuesday that seeks to replace the existing private and public pension plans with an integrated, government-run system. The bill will now be sent to the...

January 28, 2021
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28Jan

US. Biden May Have to Move Quickly to Reverse Anti-ESG Rule

The clock is ticking for the Biden administration to nullify Donald Trump’s restrictions on retirement plan fiduciaries, rules by which the Republican sought to limit their ability to direct money into environmental, social and governance funds. Trump’s Department of Labor moved earlier this month to adjust the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to require those overseeing pension and 401(k) plans to always put economic interests ahead of so-called non-pecuniary goals. It was seen as a direct...

January 28, 2021
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28Jan

UK pension schemes face new climate risk reporting rules

The UK’s largest workplace pension schemes must comply with new mandatory requirements to take action on climate change under government measures that will also pile pressure on the fund management industry. Read also UK. Pension Minister Urges Treasury For Retirement Changes But The Self-Employed May Miss Out | Personal Finance | Finance From October, trustees of pension plans with more than £5bn in assets will have a legal duty to report on the financial risks of climate change within their...

January 28, 2021
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28Jan

South Africa take-home pay numbers decline

The steep decline in the number of take-home payments has adjusted the average South African salary by a few percentage points, according to the BankservAfrica Take-home Pay Index (BTPI) for December 2020. “The real average take-home pay increased by 2,1% year-on-year,” says Shergeran Naidoo, BankservAfrica’s Head of Stakeholder Engagements. “The reason behind this is not positive. The average salary rose as a result of the decline in the number of lower paid earners that led to a 5,4% nominal...

January 28, 2021
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