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.

The motivation for this paper is the concern that financial advice – the topic of this conference – tends to focus on financial assets, applying tools that give prominence to the asset allocation decision. But most people have little financial wealth, and financial tools are often silent on the levers that will have a much larger effect on retirement security for the majority of Americans. These levers include delaying retirement, tapping housing equity through a reverse mortgage, and controlling spending. Moreover, even for many with substantial assets, these non-financial levers may be as powerful as asset allocation in attaining retirement security.

Over the last 30 years, 401(k) and other defined contribution retirement plans have displaced defined benefit pension plans in the private sector (US). Defined benefit plans traditionally provided benefits in the form of a lifetime annuity. In contrast, in 401(k) plans, annuitization is voluntary, rare, and often not even a plan option. Participants face the challenge of decumulating their wealth over their remaining lifetimes, trading off the risk of outliving that wealth against the cost of unnecessarily restricting their consumption.

It is estimated that transitioning to a low-carbon, and climate resilient economy, and more broadly „greening growth? over the next 20 years to 2030 will require significant investment and consequently private sources of capital on a much larger scale than previously. With their USD 28 trillion in assets, pension funds - along with other institutional investors - potentially have an important role to play in financing such green growth initiatives.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly one in three men between ages 55 and 61 did not work in January 2011 (US). This statistic includes men who were unemployed and looking for work, as well as those who were no longer in the labor force or never worked. Although the share of nonworking older men increased dramatically because of job losses created by the Great Recession, it has been steadily on the rise since 1990 when only around one in four older men was not working.

The 2007-09 recession was the most severe economic downturn of the post-World War II era. The nation’s output (GDP) fell 8 percent below trend between the fourth quarter of 2007 and mid-2009, and the unemployment rate doubled to over 9 percent. On average, households lost one-quarter of their wealth between the middle of 2007 and early 2009, and a third of those losses were in home equity. The total magnitude of the economic losses can be estimated with some precision from aggregate economic statistics, such as the national accounts and the flow of funds accounts. In the immediate aftermath of the recession, however, we knew much less about the distribution of those losses across the general population. Information from more detailed surveys about changes in the economic circumstance of households is now becoming available.

Det er mange som har gitt råd fra ulike pensjonseksperter om når man bør starte uttaket av pensjon. Rådene har ofte vært at tidlig uttak av alderspensjon – gjerne fra 62 år – lønner seg. Vi har sett på i hvor stor grad dette stemmer. Det er mange ulike forhold som har betydning for når det lønner seg å ta ut alderspensjonen rent økonomisk. Valg av forutsetninger har stor betydning for resultatene. I denne artikkelen gir vi en oversikt over de viktigste av disse forholdene, og viser beregningseksempler med ulike forutsetninger for å illustrere hva som lønner seg i ulike situasjoner.

Fra 2007 har det vært en stadig sterkere økning i antall nye uførepensjonister hvert år, særlig gjelder dette for yngre aldersgrupper og for kvinner. Dette har gitt opphav til uro og spekulasjon om hva som er i ferd med å skje. I denne artikkelen vil vi ta for oss to viktige årsaker til de trekkene vi observerer, nemlig den demografiske utviklingen, og konsekvensene av store reformer innenfor det helserelaterte stønadssystemet.

In particular due to increasing female employment over the last decades employment has become more flexible in regard to the contract form and we observe more discontinuous employment careers. This paper discusses in how far retirement pension systems in Europe are suited to cover the specific risks of flexible workers. Recent reforms to these systems (e.g. the strengthening of private elements) and their outcomes on flexible workers are also scrutinised.

The French pension system has for long been characterised by its very low reliance on funded pensions, which have almost become a taboo subject since the Second World War. While other countries have often complemented statutory pensions with funded occupational pension schemes, in France, the social partners have put in place an encompassing network of supplementary pension arrangements financed on a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) basis.

The old Swedish pension system combined both Beveridgean features – in the form of a
universal tax-financed flat-rate basic pension (folkpension) and pension supplements – and a
Bismarckian insurance system – the earnings-related contribution-financed defined-benefit
allmän tilläggspension (ATP) – that guaranteed very generous and encompassing protection
against old age risk. The ATP system entered serious fiscal difficulties from the 1980s, when
a 10-year long reform effort started.