Drohende Altersarmut – neue Aufgaben für die Rentenversicherung?

2012 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  

AbstractOliver Arentz and Steffen Roth state that poverty among the elderly is currently an exception in Germany. Nevertheless, it is foreseeable that future pensioners will have less income and assets at their disposal. Reasons are the effects of the demographic change to the pay-as-you-go pension scheme, gaps in employment biographies and low pay employment. With that in mind, they discuss the reform package advocated by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Furthermore they derive guidelines for a sustainable reform of the pension schemes.Bert Rürup also argues that poverty in old age is up to now not a relevant social problem in Germany. Nevertheless, there are clear indications that poverty among the elderly will increase in the future due to a bundle of reasons. Because of this there is no silver bullet to solve this problem. In the conception of an adequate strategy to reduce and to prevent a rise of poverty in old age, however, the equivalence principle as the basic principal the German statutory pension scheme has to be questioned critically.Jan Goebel gives an overview of the current development of old-age poverty in Germany and classifies widely discussed concepts for the reform of statutory pension insurance. Although current indicators generally point to an increase in old-age poverty, the empirical data show no growth at present in poverty risk for persons aged 65 and older. However, it is expected that the income position of older people will be worsen due to the declining pension payments of new retirees and the increase in discontinuous employment trajectories as well as the insufficient spread in private old age provision. One of the reforms discussed for preventing rising poverty risks in old age is to consider life expectancy in the pension formula. This appears to be a promising means of reducing inequality within the group of pensioners, he states. The implicit redistribution within the statutory pension system due to the empirically well-known correlation between living standards and life expectancy will decrease, and the equivalence principle can be strengthened.

2012 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Goebel

AbstractThe article gives an overview of the current development of old-age pover ty in Germany and classifies widely discussed concepts for the reform of statutory pension insurance. Although current indicators generally point to an increase in old-age poverty, the empirical data show no growth at present in poverty risk for persons aged 65 and older. However, it is expected that the income position of older people will be worsen due to the declining pension payments of new retirees and the increase in discontinuous employment trajectories as well as the insufficient spread in private old age provision.One of the reforms discussed for preventing rising poverty risks in old age is to consider life expectancy in the pension formula. This appears to be a promising means of reducing inequality within the group of pensioners. The implicit redistribution within the statutory pension system due to the empirically well-known correlation between living standards and life expectancy will decrease, and the equivalence principle can be strengthened.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuna Liu

From a worldwide perspective, the proportion of the elderly in the total population is increasing. How to maintain the adequacy and fnancial sustainability of pension system will be a formidable challenge for all countries. Most OECD (the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries and many emerging market countries have reformed their pensions system. Structural reforms and parametric reforms are main reform measures. Meanwhile, employment promotion of the elderly and alleviating old age poverty are drawing much more attention. It can be concluded that , on the basis of empirical analysis of other countries' reforms and comparative analysis, China should combine measures of raising the retirement age with promoting the age management ; and lower the poverty of older people to ensure that the elderly population can receive adequate retirement income; and extend the coverage of voluntary pension scheme to attract more labor force employed in informal sectors to participate in ,thus increasing retirement income eventually


2012 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bert Rürup

AbstractPoverty in old age is, up to now, not a relevant social problem in Germany.Nevertheless, there are clear indications that poverty among the elderly will increase in the future due to a bundle of reasons. Because of this there is no silver bullet to solve this problem. In the conception of an adequate strategy to reduce and to prevent a rise of poverty in old age, however, the equivalence principle as the basic principal the German statutory pension scheme has to be questioned critically.


2010 ◽  
pp. 165-175
Author(s):  
Drenka Vukovic

The process of demographic changes in Serbia is followed by discussions on the need to provide safety at old age and solve the problems of poverty and social exclusion of older citizens. In the current state there are no mechanisms that guarantee an adequate life standard at old age, the consequence of which is a high poverty rate, deteriorating health and limited access to social programs. The results of the Survey on life standard from 2002 and 2007 show that poverty among population in general and pensioners has decreased, while the poverty risk among people older than 65 has increased twice. The restrictive methods of the reforms cause a change in the relation between the pensions and the earnings, so that more and more pensioners receive below average, i.e. minimal pensions. Not all old people are covered by pension insurance so that a significant number (around 400.000) does not have a safe monthly income at all. The state program of financial aid is of modest size and does not provide help to all of the poor. Welfare aid decreases the risk of poverty, but it do not guarantee an adequate level of material security at old age. The low level of minimal and average pensions, the decline of participation in the average earnings and the strict criteria of the social security system have brought to awareness the necessity of 'social pensions' and various help and support programs for the elderly. .


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (187) ◽  
pp. 309-324
Author(s):  
Christian Christen

The reform of the old age pension scheme the last twenty years was part of an international transformation process of the old-age insurance systems since the 1980s. The core element is the conversion from the pay-as-you-go systems to capital-funded models with a shifting to individual provision and risk taking. This politically intended break shows fatal distributional and economic effects in the present. Neither a more stable, more cost-effective, more efficient old-age insurance could be established for the majority of employees, nor did the capital market-financed pension system automatically promote innovation and economic growth. In the end, most of the political promises and allegations of the reformists have already been rejected by real social and economic developments. Poverty among the elderly will rise in the near future dramatically due to the deformation of the statutory pension system, the great distortions on the labour market and rising inequality. Nevertheless, the pension consensus still holds at the moment but a radical paradigm shift and a clear revision of past reforms are overdue. 


Author(s):  
Pierre Pestieau ◽  
Mathieu Lefebvre

This chapter gives an overview of the type of pension system existing in Europe. Contributive and redistributive systems are opposed but the chapter shows that pension systems are more often a mix of both. The chapter shows how these systems have been more or less effective in tackling old age poverty in most countries and it points to the main challenges that these systems are facing, namely population ageing and low labour-force participation. The major reforms that have been implemented to ensure future sustainability of pension systems are presented but a number of additional changes that should be implemented are discussed. The chapter also presents projections for future outcomes and the link between demographic challenges and social security benefits is highlighted.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ishay Wolf ◽  
Jose Maria Caridad y Ocerin

Purpose This paper aims to analytically show that in an over-lapping-generation (OLG) model, low earning cohorts bear unwanted risk and absorb higher economic cost than high earning cohorts do. Design/methodology/approach This paper aims to consider the individual's risk appetite, using a simple utility function, based on consumptions and discount rates in each period. This paper calibrates the model according to teh Israeli pension system as a representative of a small open developed organization for economic cooperation and development country. Israel is considered as unique case study in the pension landscape, as it implements almost pure defined contribution pension scheme with continuous trend of pension market capitalization (Giorno and Jacques, 2016). Hence, this study finds Israel suitable for examining the theoretical mix of pension scheme. That model enables exploring combined solutions for adequate old age benefits, involving the first and the second pension pillars, under fiscal constraints. Findings It comes out that for risk-averse individuals, the optimal degree of funding is negatively correlated to asset returns' volatility and positively correlated to earning decile level. The neglect of risk and individual's current earning level will thus overstate the contribution level and funded percentage from total contributions. Moreover, even in an economy with minimum government intervention, and highly developed private pension fund with high average of rate of return, the authors find it is optimal that the pension system contains a sizeable unfunded pillar. This paper innovates by revealing a socio-economic anomaly in design of mix pension systems in favor of high earning cohorts on the expense of economic loss of low earning cohorts. Practical implications The model presented in this paper could be implemented in countries with mix pension systems, as an alternative to public social transfers or means tested, alleviating poverty and inequality in old age. Additionally, this model could raise the public awareness of the financial sustainability of the unfunded pay-as-you-go pillar to diversify financial risk in pension systems, especially for low earning cohort in society. Social implications One area of research that is particularly relevant in this context concerns the issue of alleviating poverty and income inequality. It is often stressed that the prevention of old age poverty is among the central targets of well-designed pension system (Holzmann and Hinz, 2005). The conceptualization of minimum pension guarantee used in this composition allows to clearly capturing the notion of such a poverty and social targets as an integral part of the pension system rolls. Originality/value This paper innovates by revealing a socio-economic anomaly in design of mix pension systems in favor of high earning cohorts on the expense of economic loss of low earning cohorts. That comes to realize through the level of total contribution rates and funded share that are generally optimal for high earning cohorts but not for low earning cohorts. This paper identifies that the effect of anomaly is most significant in a market characterized with high income-inequality level. This paper finds that imposing intra-generational risk sharing instrument in the form of minimum pension guarantee can re-balance pension design among different earning cohorts. This solution demonstrates balancing effect on the entire economy.


Author(s):  
Ji Tiezheng

With the deepening of Japan's aging and miniaturizing of family structure, coupled with Japan's economic decline, unreasonableness and abnormal supply brought by the old pension system and ancillary equipment will bring a series of problems. Social endow-ment is the trend of the times. In this paper, the author expounds the problems encountered in the reconstruc-tion of urban housing under the old-age model in Japan, and provides a comprehensive ser-vice to meet the needs of the elderly and be in line with their requirements and life style in the light of the hous- ing, supporting space, public access, internal and external environment and public facilities. And the author creates economic and practical, comfortable and convenient, safe and healthy supporting residential facilities in line with living habits of the local elderly, and on this basis, the use of the Internet of things can better support the old-age housing and promote the rapid development of old-age reform.


2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (Különszám 2) ◽  
pp. 21-31
Author(s):  
Réka Hegedüs ◽  
Klaudia Rádóczy

THE AIMS OF THE PAPER The aim of our research is to provide a picture of the conditions for providing the income background necessary for old age, the spending habits of the 50 plus age group, and to illustrate how the old ages goup of our survey, the elderly age group we survey perceives changes in their spending in the last 10-year. METHODOLOGY We used a representative personal survey with 500 Hungarian people. This survey was made in February 2020 on a targeted sample of the Hungarian population aged 50-70. In the analysis method, we used cluster formation, because we tried to identify groups showing different consumption changes based on the consumption categories of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office. MOST IMPORTANT RESULTS, NEW FINDINGS The results show that the people who participated in the survey had little perception of a change in their spending compared to their life 10 years before. On the other hand, our retirement income in old age may lag far behind the income in active, working years, so we can assume that if the significant decline in income did not affect consumption patterns, old-age income may be supplemented by savings in old age. EMPIRICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE RESEARCH The clusters that we made shows well that the spendings of the 50-plus age group are also significant for the economy as a whole. The types of their expenditures is diverse and there is a lot of items that they would not necessarily be able to afford from an average income funded by the pension scheme. The characteristics of the clusters also show that there is a positive relationship between financial awareness (planning spending, exploring sales) and age. In our oppinion this is the reason why financial awareness education, the communications about this is very important. The financial management of households can be incorporated into the education of children from an early age. Acknowledgments: This research was partially supported by the Human Resource Development Operational Programme, grant No.: EFOP-3.6.1-16-2016-00004 “Comprehensive developments at the University of Pécs for the implementation of intelligent specialization”


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