December 2023
19Dec

UK. Pensions are far from broken but could still use a fix

There aren’t too many areas of public policy where we in the UK can feel we have done a better job than in comparable countries. Our state pension system is, arguably, one of them. What we have is vaguely coherent and more affordable than most. It forms part of a system which, alongside widespread private provision and additional means-tested support for the poorest, results in many enjoying a relatively comfortable old age, and far fewer than in the past...

December 19, 2023
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14Dec

Retirement ages on the rise to protect pension systems, OECD says

Millions of people globally will have no choice but to work into their seventies to ease increasing pressure on pension systems as life expectancy rates continue to rise, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has said. OECD countries are moving to increase statutory retirement ages, curb early retirement and offer employees incentives to work longer to boost the sustainability of their pension systems, the Paris-based organisation said in its Pensions at a Glance 2023 report. “Governments have several tools available to further promote the employment and employability of...

December 14, 2023
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November 2023
30Nov

20 Countries With The Lowest Retirement Ages in The World

According to the World Health Organization, the population of individuals aged 65 or older will outnumber those under the age of 15 by 2024. In the case of the United States of America, every Baby Boomer will have turned 65 or older by 2030. Most of these Boomers will be using some sort of Medicare for health coverage, and 40 million are yet to sign up for it. Yet many others will also be receiving social security benefits. In line with several other nations grappling...

November 30, 2023
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22Nov

Iran Lawmakers Pass Bill Raising Retirement Age for Men

Iranian lawmakers have approved legislation raising the retirement age for men to 62 and increasing the years of employment required to qualify for a full pension, state media reported. The bill, which requires approval by the Guardian Council, a conservative-dominated vetting body, aims "to reduce pension fund shortfalls," according to the official IRNA news agency. In Sunday's vote in the 290-seat parliament, 127 lawmakers voted in favor, 78 against and eight abstained, with the remainder absent. The speaker of parliament, Mohammad Baqer...

November 22, 2023
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10Nov

Health and Retirement: Heterogeneity in the Responsiveness to Pension Incentives

By De Fen Hsu, Melinda Sandler Morrill & Aditi Pathak Workers often time retirement around pension eligibility, yielding a strong instrument for retirement timing.  By estimating the characteristics of the complier population, we find heterogeneity by individuals' health status in the responsiveness to pension-related financial incentives to retire.  Workers in poor health do not uniformly retire earlier or later, but rather are less responsive overall to pension incentives.  Thus, characterizing compliers may yield different conclusions than simple comparisons of means. Source...

November 10, 2023
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August 2023
29Aug

Labour unions push to raise retirement age in greying South Korea

South Korean labour unions are battling company managements to press an unusual demand: raising the age of retirement to give workers a few more wage-earning years before having to seek another job to supplement slim pensions. The issue fuels a contest for jobs between older workers among one of the world's fastest-ageing populations, with a rate of poverty among its elderly of three times the OECD average, and young workforce entrants facing dwindling options. "Having to move to low-quality jobs after...

August 29, 2023
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24Aug

Retirement age in Germany continues to rise, new figures show

Last year the average age for men to access old-age pensions increased to 64.4. This is up from 64.1 the previous year and 62.4 years in 2001. For women, the retirement age also rose, from 62.5 in 2001 to 64.2 in 2021 and 64.4 last year. In a parallel development, retirees in recent years have been receiving their benefits for longer. Among men, the duration of pension benefits has increased from 16.7 to 18.8 over the past decade. Women received...

August 24, 2023
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July 2023
12Jul

Aboriginal Man Loses Pension Fight With Australian Government

Proud Wakka Wakka man Uncle Dennis* brought the case in which the Federal Government faced court for the first time in connection with its failure to close the gap in life expectancy between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Indigenous people. Despite recognising the ongoing gap in life expectancy, the Court did not accept that Australia's racial discrimination laws should give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people earlier access to the age pension. It comes on the same day as...

July 12, 2023
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03Jul

UK. ‘It’s exhausting but I think I’m going to have to keep working’: the over-65s who can’t afford to retire

Dee, 67, who lives in Accrington in Lancashire, left school at 14. She worked in factories, hairdressing shops and bars, and did secretarial temp work all over the country before she took a job at HM Revenue and Customs, where she worked full-time for 23 years. Last year, in May, she began her retirement, but after only a few weeks she realised that she could not afford it because of the rising cost of living. “I had two months off,...

July 3, 2023
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June 2023
22Jun

Over 80% of South Africans plan to work past retirement due to insufficient savings: Survey

About 89% of those who participated in the FNB Retirement Insight Survey plan to continue working past retirement age due to a lack of sufficient retirement savings. The survey, which focused on pre-retirement and post-retirement periods, also revealed that the majority of low-income earners are not confident that the retirement plans they have will deliver results due to financial constraints and age. It has also been discovered that about 39% of respondents who don’t currently have a retirement plan in place...

June 22, 2023
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