The global financial and economic crisis has affected pension schemes in Europe in three major ways. Firstly, these schemes have served as one form of ‘automatic stabiliser’ – in other words, as a means of mitigating the potential social consequences of the negative state of the economy – and their use to this end is expected to increase social expenditure in many EU countries. Secondly, the worsening economic situation has entailed new challenges to the financial sustainability of social protection: growing unemployment and negative GDP growth represent a loss in revenues for welfare programmes and may thus lead to the deterioration of public budgets. Thirdly, the financial shock has dealt a severe blow to both private fully-funded schemes and public
reserve funds.

In the last two decades, pensions policy has undergone numerous innovations across Europe and the changes have been characterised by common trends. These include cost-containment measures under the public pillar; increased attention to the regulation of supplementary pension schemes; the revision of tax policy; and the introduction of new forms of governance of public and nonpublic pillars. In many European countries reforms have thus led to increased complexity of pension systems, insofar as they now typically entail parallel action of the first public pillar and supplementary pension funds.

Pensions are inherently risky because they are long-term contracts, which complicates financial planning for individuals and governments. If things turn out better than expected, who will reap the gains? If things turn out worse, who will bear the cost? No one wants to bear risk, but, in most cases, someone has to. Risks in pension systems have, in the past, been poorly measured or even just ignored.

Egne pensjonsordninger for særskilte yrkesgrupper har lange historiske røtter i Europa. Slike yrkespensjonsordninger ble i mange europeiske land etablert som de første pensjonsordningene, lenge før de offentlige sosialforsikringssystemene ble etablert. Det var først og fremst i offentlig sektor det historisk utviklet seg egne pensjonsordninger for yrkesgrupper basert på egne lover, typisk for embetsmenn og militært personell, men også for ulike yrkesgrupper i helsevesenet. I noen tilfeller var det særlige yrkesgrupper som sjømenn og fiskere som fikk egne ordninger. I Norge er det eksempler på begge slike typer av yrkesordninger.

Foretakspensjonene i privat sektor skal tilpasses ny folketrygd. For første gang gjennomføres en del av Pensjonsreformen i en tid preget av den internasjonale krisa. Lav rente, svak aksjeavkastning, en todelt industri og økte kapitalkrav for banker og forsikringsselskap gjør at både virksomheter og pensjonsleverandører stirrer ekstra hardt på bunnlinjen. Mange bedrifter har allerede eller står i startgropa for å løpe fra kostnaden knyttet til den risiko det er å sikre arbeidstakerne forutsigbare pensjoner.

The self-employed workers make up a small but significant minority of the workforce in many OECD countries. Moreover, transitions into and out of self-employment have become much more common for a larger group of workers. It is therefore of critical importance to review and assess the pension schemes available to self-employed workers across OECD countries. Given employment and income patterns commonly observed for this subgroup, it is also important to address the issue of compliance and enforcement towards a formal affiliation of this group to pension schemes on offer. This paper reviews three key aspects of pension schemes available to self-employed workers: coverage, contributions and benefits. In each part, analyses are undertaken not just by describing the rules governing these schemes but also looking into their actual functioning in terms of compliance and enforcement.

Pension reform is a focus of World Bank activities because pensions are an important part of the social safety net for workers covered by the formal pension system in many client countries. Pensions are a mechanism to reduce the risks of old-age poverty and a means to smooth lifetime income to maintain living standards in retirement.

The public pension system of Japan provides coverage for all, irrespective of occupation and income. Corporate pension plans provide additional benefits over the public pension in order to meet the diversified financial needs in retirement and play a key role in enriching people‘s life after retirement.

Pensjonskasseforeningen inviterer til Pensjonskassekonferansen 2012. 18. og 19. april 2012 Rica Park Hotel Sandefjord. Last ned programmet her.

This paper reviews the public pension schemes and the pension models used for the projections carried out by the Economic Policy Committee and the European Commission on age-related expenditure in 2005. The pension schemes are described as they were in force in 2005, including the effects of pension reforms enacted by mid-2005 even though the implementation of reforms would occur over a longer period of time.

The financial turmoil and the ensuing economic crisis have had a major impact on private pension assets. The current economic and financial crisis has reduced the value of assets accumulated to finance retirement by around 20-25% on average according to the latest OECD figures. However, there is large variability across countries, varying from positive but small returns in some countries to falls over 30% in Ireland and the United States (Annex).

Pension funds were worth around 27trillion dollarsin 2007 just before the crisis.Total world GDP at the time was 55 trillion dollars according to the World Bank. Around half the funds’ investments were in the property market and corporate bonds and deposits. After rising steadily for the previous five years, stock markets collapsed in 2008, as did property markets, and the value of pension fund assets fell by 3.5 trillion dollars.