May 2022

India. Donate-a-pension retirement plan finds few takers

The government's Donate-a-Pension initiative to build up a retirement kitty for unorganised workers, including domestic helps, has failed to garner enough responses. The number of beneficiaries enrolled under the Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-dhan (PM-SYM) scheme has slowed considerably in fiscal year 2022-23, strengthening the case for a major revamp of the initiative. Only 14,518 unorganised workers enrolled under the scheme between April 1 and May 25, government data showed, bringing average enrolment in a month to a little over 7,000....

México. Afores con minusvalías de 253,443 millones de pesos: Consar

La invasión de Rusia a Ucrania, como principal motivo, ha ocasionado que las minusvalías registradas en las administradoras de fondos para el retiro (afores) acumulen 253,443 millones de pesos al cierre del primer cuatrimestre del año, de acuerdo con datos de la Comisión Nacional del Sistema del Ahorro para el Retiro (Consar). Para ponerlo en perspectiva, las minusvalías registradas son mayores a los 238,014 millones de pesos destinados al programa de Pensión para el Bienestar de las Personas Adultas Mayores...

New measures to support pensioners amid inflation crisis in the UK

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has unveiled a new £15bn emergency package of measures to support households through the cost of living crisis but some pensioners risk missing out. The government said pensioner households will receive an extra one-off Pensioner Cost of Living Payment of £300 to help with their bills and living costs, while more than 8 million low-income households on means tested benefits – which includes those receiving Pension Credit – will receive a one off £650 payment. “While this is...

French pensions to be tied to inflation in July, labour minister says

French pensions are to be tied to inflation from this summer in an effort to increase retirees spending power, France’s labour minister Olivier Dussopt has said. “What we want is for this inflation indexation to be valid from July,” he told RTL on Tuesday (May 24). Inflation in France reached 4.8% year-on-year in April, and could rise to 5.4% in June, the national statistics bureau Insee states. “If we take into account an inflation of 4%, for example, for a pension of...

Many soon-to-be retired Canadians considering changing retirement date

One-third of retired Canadians between ages 55 and 75 have retired sooner than originally planned, according to a recent RBC survey. And while the survey didn't provide insight into why people decided to take advantage of their golden years earlier, Selene Soo, director of wealth insurance at RBC Insurance, offered her guess. "If I had to wager a guess, with the last two years, it could have been that it wasn't of their own choice. Just because of businesses going under,...

Does Financial Education in High School Affect Retirement Savings in Adulthood?

By Melody Harvey & Carly Urban Since individuals are increasingly required to manage their own retirement portfolios, policy levers that increase retirement planning and saving have become increasingly important. We use variation in timing and presence of state-required personal finance coursework in high schools to estimate the effect of the financial education coursework on the likelihood of holding and amount in retirement accounts in adulthood (ages 25–40). Our results show no definitive increases in account ownership, non-retirement investment accounts, or...

Why are LGBTQ+ investors different?

Why are LGBTQ+ investors different?

By Matthew Carter &  Paul Donovan The obvious question when writing about LGBTQ+ investment is why the LGBTQ+ community would need to invest differently from the cis-gendered heterosexual community? The answer is that full legal and social equality does not exist anywhere in the world. When different groups face different social or legal environments, they need to invest differently to deal with the challenges that they face. While the main concerns of investors are the same, regardless of gender or sexual...

Serenity Now, Save Later? Evidence on Retirement Savings Puzzles from a 401(K) Field Experiment

Serenity Now, Save Later? Evidence on Retirement Savings Puzzles from a 401(K) Field Experiment

By Saurabh Bhargava & Lynn Conell-Price Economists have advanced several psychological frictions to explain why many 401(k)-eligible employees undersave for retirement despite generous matching incentives. We provide evidence on four of these frictions through a field experiment randomizing undersaving employees to information- and incentive-based treatments linked to a survey assessing each friction’s baseline incidence. We describe four main findings: (1) We corroborate prior work showing pervasive deficits in retirement literacy and their correlation with saving but reject any meaningful increase...

Labor Migration in Asia. COVID-19 Impacts, Challenges, and Policy Responses

By ADBI Institute, OECD & ILO International migration is a difficult megatrend to predict. Yesterday, the COVID-19 pandemic; today, the Ukrainian refugee crisis; these have had and will have unpredictable long-lasting impacts on the international cross-border movements of tourists and migrant workers. After two years of a global pandemic, the world is still in the midst of a disruption of migration patterns. The cascade of border closures and the wild swings in economic activity upended predictions about labor migration. Deployment...

The National Landscape of State Retirement Benefits. How Good Are Public Retirement Systems at Putting Employees on a Path to Retirement Income Security?

By Jonathan Moody & Anthony Randazzo  Retirement security is ultimately about retirement income. Families and individuals want to know that during their retirement years they will have enough weekly, monthly, or annual income to live comfortably and meet their basic needs. Of course, many people aspire to more than just the basics. Ask even a handful of individuals about how they want to live in retirement, and you’ll hear a wide range of preferences. Expenses can vary from family-to-family, too,...