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December 2022

India. PFRDA proposes bringing gig workers into pension fold

India's pension fund regulator has recommended the federal government introduce a UK-like pension scheme for the country's gig workers, a move aimed at bringing about 90% of the overall workforce into the pension fold, its chairman told Reuters. The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), which manages over $102 billion in assets, has proposed that workers at food and cab aggregators be automatically enrolled into the National Pension Scheme (NPS), Chairman Supratim Bandyopadhyay said in an interview on Tuesday. The...

U.S. New retirement account rules make it easier to tap savings early for emergencies

It will soon be easier for cash-strapped Americans to tap their retirement savings for emergency expenses. President Joe Biden is poised to sign a $1.7 trillion bill that amends rules related to so-called hardship distributions from 401(k) plans. The measures are tucked into “Secure 2.0,” a collection of retirement reforms attached to the overall legislative package, which will fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year through next September. The House and Senate passed the bill last week. Current...

Germany. Companies Introduce Social Partner Model For Pensions

At first glance, the interest is extremely low: Of the 1,900 companies that the Federal Chemical Employers’ Association (BAVC) wrote to, only 50 had decided in favor of the new “Nahles pension” by the beginning of December. A rate of 2.6 percent. Nevertheless, Klaus-Peter Stiller, general manager of the association, is anything but disappointed. After all, the companies currently have other concerns in the energy crisis than adjusting their pension systems. “In this respect, the 50 companies that have...

Inferring Occupation Arduousness from Poor Health Beyond the Age of 50

By: Vincent Vandenberghe In the absence of a direct description of occupation arduousness, this paper shows how it can be inferred from poor health beyond the age of 50. Using retrospective lifetime data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) including the respondents’ professional career described with ISCO 2-digit, this paper finds a statistically significant link between many occupations and the risk of poor health beyond the age of 50. Next, we quantify the relative contribution...

British government looks at pension rules to retain health workers

Britain's government is launching a consultation into how to amend pension rules for workers in the National Health Service to help retain more staff, at a time when the sector faces strikes over pay this month that could halt some procedures. The governing Conservative Party has long promised to sort out a health service which has struggled to recover after being stretched to its limits during the COVID-19 pandemic and now faces strikes by thousands of nurses and ambulance workers. "The...

November 2022

UK. Ten years of Automatic Enrolment achieves over £114bn pension savings

In 2021, employees across the UK saved £114.6 billion into their pensions. This is a real terms increase of £32.9 billion compared to 2012, when Automatic Enrolment was introduced. The figures reveal how the policy has transformed pensions saving over the last ten years for people from Sterling to Southend, by normalising workplace pension saving, establishing a culture of retirement saving for a new generation, and helping foster a greater sense of security in later life. More than 10.7 million employees...

Over 84,000 Nigerians enrolled in micro pension plan –PENCOM

The National Pension Commission (PenCom), yesterday revealed that over 84,000 Nigerians have enrolled in the ongoing Micro Pension plan. This was even as the Commission reiterated that it will continue to embark on massive awareness to ensure more Nigerians key into the initiative. The Head, Micro Pensions Department at PenCom, Dauda Ahmed, disclosed this to newsmen at the ongoing Lagos International Trade Fair organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Ahmed noted that the commission has had interactions with would-be-...

US. Rising Interest Rates Change the Math on Pensions for Some Would-Be Retirees

Higher interest rates are good for our cash and checking accounts but are not always good for pension holders. Rising interest rates have an inverse relationship to a pension’s lump-sum value. As interest rates increase, the value of a pension holder’s lump sum could decrease. Because of this, I am seeing more pension holders who want to take a lump sum do so now vs. waiting. I am also seeing annuity rates improve with rising interest rates, pushing annuity income...

Too much choice counterproductive in retirement systems, new report finds

Giving pension savers the freedom to choose their own investments is beneficial, but including too much choice in a national pension system is counterproductive, according to a new report assessing different retirement frameworks. In the white paper produced by US financial services firm Morningstar – An Evaluation of Retirement Systems Around the World – analysts reach a number of conclusions, saying some countries are better than others at limiting choice; that auto-enrolment programmes are effective and that efforts to engage...

Risk Pooling and Precautionary Saving in Village Economies

By Marcel Fafchamps & Aditya Shrinivas We propose a new method to test for efficient risk pooling that allows for intertemporal smoothing, non-homothetic consumption, and heterogeneous risk and time preferences. The method is composed of three steps. The first one allows for precautionary savings by the aggregate risk pooling group. The second utilizes the inverse Engel curve to estimate good-specific tests for efficient risk pooling. In the third step, we obtain consistent estimates of households' risk and time preferences using...