January 2020

Solving Chile’s Crisis Starts With Fixing Its Pension System

BY JORGE HEINE Protesters cite the Pinochet-era retirement scheme as their top grievance. Fixing it will mean a return to basic principles of social security. As Chile’s protests continue into the new year, it is important to understand the reasons behind the public’s frustration – and for policymakers to come up with ways to address it. In that, no issue is more important than Chile’s private pension scheme, singled out in opinion polls as the most important issue for...

Social Security and Pension Reform: International Perspectives

By Marek Szczepanski, John A. Turner Countries around the world are reforming their social security and pension systems. International studies often focus on social security reforms in Europe and North America, and may include Latin America. Reforms, however, are also occurring in Asia and Africa, and include reforms of voluntary and employer-provided pensions as well as social security programs. This book discusses both social security and employer-provided pension reforms, as well as reforms in most regions of the world....

December 2019

The Old-Age Security Motive for Fertility: Evidence from the Extension of Social Pensions in Namibia

By Pauline Rossi (University of Amsterdam), Mathilde Godard (GATE-LSE, Lyon) The old-age security motive for fertility postulates that people's needs for old-age support raise the demand for children. We test this widespread idea using the extension of social pensions in Namibia during the nineties. The reform eliminated inequalities in pension coverage and benefit across regions and ethnic groups. Combining differences in pre-reform pensions and differences in exposure across cohorts, we show that pensions substantially reduce fertility, especially in late...

Pakistan. PMYAP ‘Social Protection’ programme to provide social security, legal aid to youth

Prime Minister Youth Affairs Programme (PMYAP)has worked out its first comprehensive “Social Protection” programme aimed to provide social security and legal aid to the youth facing community issues and conflicts. A PMYAP official told APP, the programme would provide protection and security to the youth who were indulged in drug addiction and other wrong practices leaving their household in pathetic condition adding,“It would create awareness among the youngsters to prevent from social evils and wrong practices and would also...

November 2019

A Two-Step Mixed Pension System: How to Reinvent Social Security with the Help of Notional Accounts and Term Annuities

By Inmaculada Domínguez-Fabián,Pierre Devolder, Francisco del Olmo García, Jose A Herce The change in economic and sociodemographic reality, characterized by a continuous increase in longevity, the consequences of the economic crisis, and the lack of adequate adjustments of social security retirement pension systems everywhere, entails risks for workers and the social security systems themselves. Many reforms of public pension systems have been carried out in recent years, based on modifying system parameters and structural changes. Some reforms aim at...

October 2019

Market Inefficiency and Household Labor Supply: Evidence from Social Security’s Survivors Benefits

By Itzik Fadlon, Shanthi Ramnath, Patricia Tong We study the effects of the Social Security survivors benefits program on household labor supply and the efficiency implications for insurance and credit markets. We use U.S. population tax records and exploit a sharp age discontinuity in benefit eligibility for identification. We find that eligibility induces considerable reductions in labor supply both among newly-widowed households in the immediate post-shock periods and among already-widowed households whose benefit receipt is entirely predictable. The evidence...

Social Security Education a Must-Have for Retirement Plan Participants

General education is helpful, but getting personal will help employees establish a plan for income in retirement. According to the Social Security Administration’s website, Social Security will replace about 40% of an employee’s pre-retirement income after retirement. It explains that this will be lower for people in the upper income brackets and higher for people with low incomes. “You’ll need to supplement your benefits with a pension, savings or investments,” the website says. However, even the Social Security Administration notes...

September 2019

Women and Labour Market Dynamics: New Insights and Evidences

By Balwant Singh Mehta, Ishwar Chandra Awasthi This book addresses women’s changing role in and contributions to the Indian labour market. It explores how feminist theories and frameworks have changed over time and gradually been supplanted by new ones. The book explores the structural shift in women’s employment from farm to non-farm jobs in services and industries, both theoretically and empirically. Further, it examines the steady rise of women in high skilled or ‘new economy’ sectors like information and...

Ghana. NPRA assures workers of payment of Three-Tier pension benefits

The National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) has given the assurance that the industry was ready for the first batch of Ghanaian workers who would be retiring at age 60 in 2020 to begin enjoying their benefits under the new Three-Tier Pension Scheme. As of December 2018, the total Pension Fund had increased to Gh¢22.2 billion from the about Gh¢20.7 billion in 2017. This is made up of Gh¢13.1 billion of Assets Under Management (AUM) for Private Pension Funds and...

Zimbabwe. NSSA to effect upward review of pension payouts

The National Social Security Authority (NSSA) will soon effect an upward review of pension payouts to improve the welfare of pensioners and cushion them from the economic challenges. This follows a Government decision in July this year, to award a once off discretionary bonus equivalent to a month’s pension to cushion pensioners from the general increase in the cost of living. The actual percentage increases could, however, not be ascertained this week, as NSSA is still in the process...