February 2023

New Evidence on the Demand for Advice within Retirement Plans

By Jonathan Reuter & David P. Richardson We study demand for advice by retirement plan participants using administrative records from defined contribution retirement plans offered by 23 institutions where TIAA is the sole recordkeeper. We distinguish advice on asset allocation from advice on retirement income levels, and between participants who are and are not eligible for TIAA’s wealth management services. We find that advice seeking increases with age, account balance and annual contribution level, and is highest among those eligible for wealth management services. However, we...

January 2023

Concern as millions with no savings in Kenya face old age poverty

About 13.9 million Kenyans have no form of retirement savings scheme, and the majority of them are in the informal sector. According to data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), there were about 17.4 million people in the formal and informal sectors as of the year 2020.“The labour market is skewed towards informal employment at 83 per cent. This is a time bomb and indicating that most Kenyans will retire poor,” the report notes. The report was presented during...

World Migration Report 2022

By: IOM Since 2000, IOM has been producing its flagship world migration reports every two years. The World Migration Report 2022, the eleventh in the world migration report series, has been produced to contribute to increased understanding of migration and mobility throughout the world. This new edition presents key data and information on migration as well as thematic chapters on highly topical migration issues, and is structured to focus on two key contributions for readers: Part I: key information on migration...

South Africa. Take-home pay falls almost 5% in December, capping off dismal year, index shows

South Africans' average take home pay declined almost 5% in December, ending a dismal year at a low point, with signs that record load shedding and rampant inflation took its toll on households, Africa's largest automated clearing house BankservAfrica said on Wednesday. Average pay, as measured in BankservAfrica's Take-home Pay Index, slipped to R14 663 in December, when more than 200 000 new jobs were added, probably reflecting the fact that many new jobs are likely to have been created...

US. Unmarried Women No Longer Pay a Financial Penalty in Retirement

On the retirement front, a new study has some good news for unmarried women: They’re no longer falling behind their married peers. Still, it’s tough to celebrate equality when it seems to be driven mostly by the falling fortunes of men. Studies about how prepared US workers overall are for retirement tend to be incredibly depressing — and even more so when they focus on women, who say in staggering percentages that they’re worried about running out of money. Much...

The Problem in An Aging Society is Income Distribution

The New York Times had a major article reporting on how many people in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan are being forced to work well into their seventies because they lack sufficient income to retire. The piece presents this as a problem of aging societies, which will soon hit the United States and other rich countries with declining birth rates and limited immigration. While the plight of the older workers discussed in the article is a real problem, the...

Standardized, Unitized, Accretive Longevity Insurance: Lessons from the Differing Demand for Annuities and Life Insurance

By Andrew Stumpff Morrison The historic U.S. shift from defined-benefit to defined-contribution employer-sponsored retirement plans has produced, among other things, a reduction in sharing of the risk of outliving one’s retirement savings. Commercial annuity contracts are available to insure this risk, but despite efforts to encourage their acquisition, few people own them. Close comparison with another life-cycle risk – that addressed by life insurance, which is more widely purchased by consumers – highlights as a probable reason for this low...

December 2022

ILO warns: 34.5% of over 65s have no income in Latin America and the Caribbean

The International Labor Organization (ILO) on Thursday warned about elderly people's issues in Latin America regarding labor income and pensions. The report indicates that 34.5 percent of people over 65 years of age in that region do not receive wages or pensions, a higher percentage than before the Covid-19 pandemic, when this indicator was at 31.9 percent. This is one of the main conclusions of the report on social protection in Latin America and the Caribbean, drafted by ILO. According to the...

UK. State pension: ‘60,000’ veterans set to miss out on 10.1% boost next year

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has confirmed there will be a 10.1 percent rise to the state pension from April 2023, as the triple lock returns. The news has been welcomed by many older Britons, but not all state pensioners can expect to obtain the increase. The UK European Economic Area (EEA) Gibraltar Switzerland Countries with a social security agreement with the UK (but not Canada or New Zealand). Those who live outside of these countries will not get a yearly increase, and...

Senior living inflation is skyrocketing in some parts of the U.S. These states lead the way

Seniors have been feeling the repercussions of inflation. Those 55 and older have had to cut back on health visits and meals—some limiting the heat in their homes—in order to save money this year, according to a new report. The report released last month by Paying For Senior Care, which provides financial information for the aging population, examined how inflation affects seniors’ daily lives. The report, which surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults ages 55 and older, found one in four have...