Centro de Documentacion de Fundación MAPFRE - Pension reforms in Europe : how far have we come and gone?

Publication: Washington, DC : International Monetary Fund, 2021Physical description: 93 p.Notes: Sumario: In the past few decades, a myriad of reforms in Europe have had a significant impact on the way and extent to which public pensions provide retirement income. This departmental paper takes stock of where European pension systems stand and assesses their key characteristics. We present a novel measure of the balance between lifetime benefits and contributions-the Proportionality Measure-to examine pension systems' long-term sustainability, fairness, and intergenerational equity. The results presented in this paper suggest that in most countries additional efforts are needed to ensure the long-term sustainability of pension systems. Reforms enacted in recent decades raised retirement ages, streamlined benefit entitlements, and flattened the profile of pension spending projections. Still, in many countries, pension spending and deficits are projected to increase and remain at high levels for decades to come, fueled by rising old-age dependency. Older generations-that is, current retirees-receive lifetime benefits that exceed their lifetime contributions more than twofold. Reforms legislated in the decade following the GFC reduced the lifetime benefit-contribution ratio to nearly 1.5 for younger generations, going halfway toward long-term sustainability. However, subsequent and more recent reforms and reversals have partly eroded these gains and, as of 2021, the lifetime benefit-contribution ratio stands at about 1.7 for younger generations. This leaves most pension systems dependent on substantial state transfers for generations that crowd out other productive spending, including resources needed for greener and more inclusive economic transformation.Materia / lugar / evento: Pensiones Jubilación Reforma financiera Política económica Reforma de la Seguridad Social Ageingnomics. Economia senior Europa Otros autores: Fouejieu, Armand
International Monetary Fund
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