October 2021
19Oct

Irish pensions system at risk, new study says

The €5 hike in the State pension in last week’s budget, along with delays in increasing retirement age and introducing automatic enrolment into savings plans, all threaten the sustainability of the pensions system over the long term, according to a new study. The Mercer study points to considerable future challenges as the population ages due to the topping up of what is described as a “generous” pensions system, and a failure to address core issues. Also adding to the problem is...

October 19, 2021
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15Oct

Gender Inequality in Retirement Savings

By Dr David Knox, Michael Rice and Richard Dunn Over the last twenty years, there has been increasing interest in the reasons for the gap between the average male and female retirement balances. This gap, known as the gender pension gap1, is characterised by the fact that, on average, women tend to live on a lower income in retirement than men. It is usually measured by combining all sources of retirement income, whether public or private, pay-as-you-go or funded. In this...

October 15, 2021
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15Oct

Gender Preferences in Job Vacancies and Workplace Gender Diversity

By David Card, Fabrizio Colella & Rafael Lalive In spring 2005, Austria launched a campaign to inform employers and newspapers that gender preferences in job advertisements were illegal. At the time over 40% of openings on the nation’s largest job-board specified a preferred gender. Over the next year the fraction fell to under 5%. We merge data on filled vacancies to linked employer-employee data to study how the elimination of gender preferences affected hiring and job outcomes. Prior to the...

October 15, 2021
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September 2021
28Sep

How to fix the gender pension gap

By Azka Ali, David Knox, Yvonne Sonsino The gender pension gap is a problem in most retirement income systems around the world. The causes and compounding effects are related to employment and pension design as well as socio-cultural issues. These issues need fixing at a multi-stakeholder level by HR and pension leaders, governments and women themselves. The gender pension gap exists in virtually every retirement income system around the world. The range is remarkable, with Japan having an almost 50%...

September 28, 2021
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24Sep

One Country, Two Systems: Evidence on Retirement Patterns in China

By John Giles, Xiaoyan Lei, Gewei Wang, Stephen Yafeng Wang, Yaohui Zhao This paper documents the patterns and correlates of retirement in China using a nationally representative survey, the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). After documenting stark differences in retirement ages between urban and rural residents, the paper shows that China's urban residents retire earlier than workers in many OECD countries and that rural residents continue to work until advanced ages. Differences in access to generous pensions and...

September 24, 2021
Articles, Pension design, System Sustainability, , , ,
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01Sep

UK’s biggest pension scheme set to screen investments based on workforce diversity

The UK’s largest workplace pension scheme Nest has joined forces with the Church of England Pension Board to sign up to a new charter committing them to screen their investments taking account of gender and ethnicity diversity. It marks a significant step towards tackling the asset management industry’s serial image problem, namely, that they’re all male, pale and stale. A study run by investment data firm reveal more funds in the UK are run by men called Dave than by women. Now...

September 1, 2021
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August 2021
06Aug

Argentina’s new pensions programme pays women for caregiving

The Argentine government is seeking to redress that gender inequity by assigning a pension contribution value to the time people have spent raising children. Read also It’s time to give essential workers the protections they deserve The programme, launched this week, marks the first time the role of an unpaid caregiver has been recognised by the Argentine state as something akin to work. The policy is expected to enable 155,000 more women to collect a pension immediately. Read also Towards Improved Retirement...

August 6, 2021
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July 2021
23Jul

Towards Improved Retirement Savings Outcomes for Women

By OECD Labour market inequalities are well-known to be the main drivers of the gender pension gap. This publication focuses on helping governments find solutions for retirement savings arrangements that do not further exacerbate these inequalities. This study first analyses why the gender pension gap exists and sheds light on some of the behavioural and cultural factors that contribute to these inequalities. Country case studies assess how demographics, labour markets and other factors may affect gaps in pension coverage, assets...

July 23, 2021
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23Jul

Joint Retirement of Couples: Evidence from Discontinuities in Denmark

By Esteban García-Miralles & Jonathan M. Leganza We study how social security influences the retirement behavior of couples. First, we exploit over two decades of full-population data and a discontinuity design to document sizable retirement spillovers to spouses when individuals reach pension eligibility age. Next, we explore underlying mechanisms. We find age differences within couples to be a fundamental determinant of joint retirement, which is driven by older spouses working longer. Accounting for these age differences reveals a strong gender...

July 23, 2021
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23Jul

The Fintech Gender Gap

By Sharon Chen, Sebastian Doerr, Jon Frost, Leonardo Gambacorta & Hyun Song Shin Fintech promises to spur financial inclusion and close the gender gap in access to financial services. Using novel survey data for 28 countries, this paper finds a large 'fintech gender gap': while 29% of men use fintech products and services, only 21% of women do. The gap is present in almost every country in our sample. Country characteristics and several individual-level controls explain about a third of...

July 23, 2021
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