Demographic changes in the UK mean that life expectancy is increasing and the ratio of people eligible to claim the State Pension relative to the working population is rising. At the same time there has been a long-term decline in the level of private saving for later life.

A decade after major structural reforms, pension reform has again become a burning issue in Central and Eastern Europe. Indisputably, social security systems have played an important role in mitigating the adverse impact of the global economic crisis on the population. However, social security systems – notably pension systems – in Central and Eastern Europe are under pressure of short-term financial consolidation due to budget constraints resulting from the global economic crisis. In addition, ageing populations pose a structural challenge for their long-term financial sustainability.

The debt crisis in the Economic and Monetary Union has revealed the need in many member countries to engage in an unprecedented fiscal consolidation process, not only in the short term, but also in the long term. Therefore, the urgent need to accelerate in many cases the reforms of their pension systems with a view to ensuring the sustainability of their public finance over time has been revived.

Pension systems differ throughout the EU-27 as each system reflects in a certain way a specific institutional arrangement. Still there are some features which most of these systems contain, and similar developments can be observed as many Member States are faced with the same general challenges regarding pension sustainability and adequacy.

When Social Security’s Full Retirement Age (FRA) increased to age 66 for recent retirees, the peak retirement age increased with it. However, a large share of people continue to claim their Social Security benefits at age 65. This paper explores two potential explanations for the “stickiness” of age 65 as a claiming age: Medicare eligibility and workers’ lack of knowledge about their future Social Security benefits.

EU social and employment policies increasingly emphasise extending working life and increasing effective retirement age. Over the past few years, it has become more common for Europeans to work beyond the age at which they are entitled to a statutory or occupational pension.

Countries exhibit considerable variety in the design of pension systems. Apparently, the pension system can be organized in many alternative ways, with alternative allocations of the functions of the pension system to different institutions or ‘pillars’ in the system.

Over the last decade most Member States have reformed their pension systems to improve their medium and longer term sustainability as a precondition for delivering on adequacy objectives. But in the context of accelerating population ageing and the current economic crisis achieving pension policy objectives are becoming more challenging.

Private pensions play an important role in the provision of income in retirement in the UK, although their role has evolved over time. While defined benefit (DB) pensions were prevalent in earlier decades, the importance of defined contribution pensions has been growing and will continue to increase in future years, especially for later cohorts. In particular, the introduction of auto-enrolment from 2012 is expected to increase pension coverage and the amount of pension wealth individuals accumulate before retirement, much of which is likely to be in DC schemes.

Many EU states have adjusted pension benefits or reformed the pension system in reaction to the recent economic crisis, while other member states have postponed this type of adjustments.

The topic of responsible investment is an important challenge to pension funds. This challenge doesn’t only apply to individual schemes, but is also seen as a collective one. That’s why the Dutch Association of Industry-wide Pension Funds (VB), the Dutch Association of Company Pension Funds (OPF) and the Union of Occupational Pension Funds (UvB) have decided to act jointly on this dossier.

Fafo-forsker Geir Veland tar et blikk på hvordan det private tjenestepensjonsmarkedet i Norge har utviklet seg i perioden 2002–2011. Han presenterer de viktigste trekk og endringstendenser, og viser at det private tjenestepensjonssystemet fortsatt er i endring.