July 2019

Australia. Pension payments could increase with change to deeming rate

More than half a million Australians could have their pension payments increased with the government on the cusp of making a significant change. Labor claims if the government lowers the deeming rate by the same amount the Reserve Bank has lowered interest rates, some part-pensioners will be anywhere between $62 and $3875 a year better off.The government is unlikely to lower it by that much because it would almost wipe out its surplus but hundreds of thousands of pensioners...

Greater percentage of Ghanaian pensioners live in penury

Lesley Dwight Mensah, an economist at the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), a local economic policy think tank explained to Xinhua that the reason for this condition was the lack of monthly pension payment for most people after the end of their service. “Only about 14 percent of Ghanaians in retirement age (population of 60 and above) receive a pension. As of the end of 2018, there were 1.9 million people in Ghana aged 60; and just about 270,000...

Irish pension funds diversify amid uncertain outlook

Pension funds here have lowered their exposure and diversified into property, infrastructure and hedge funds according to a new report from Mercer. The survey of 876 institutional investors across 12 countries managing assets of around €1 trillion found average equity allocations for Irish defined benefit schemes have fallen and now stand at just 28% compared to 34% in 2018 The Mercer's 2019 European Asset Allocation survey also found that bond allocations remain broadly at 50%, while allocations to alternative...

The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World

By Melinda Gates “In her book, Melinda tells the stories of the inspiring people she’s met through her work all over the world, digs into the data, and powerfully illustrates issues that need our attention—from child marriage to gender inequity in the workplace.” — President Barack Obama “The Moment of Lift is an urgent call to courage. It changed how I think about myself, my family, my work, and what’s possible in the world. Melinda weaves together vulnerable,...

The Ultimate Guide to Retirement in South Africa

By Bruce Cameron, Wouter Fourie Most people are rich for a single day in their lives: the day they retire and receive their retirement savings. This moment is more critical than many people realise – it marks the change from saving for retirement to drawing an income from savings that will ideally sustain them until they die. All too often, pensioners end up struggling financially because they make the wrong decisions after they retire. It is crucial for...

Welfare Effects of a Non-Contributory Old Age Pension: Experimental Evidence for Ekiti State, Nigeria

By Maria Laura Alzua, Natalia Cantet, Ana Dammert, Damilola Olajide Many countries in the developing world have implemented non-contributory old-age pensions. Evidence of the impact of such policies on the elderly in Sub-Saharan Africa is scarce, however. In this paper, we provide the first evidence from a randomized evaluation of an unconditional, non-contributory pension scheme targeted at the elderly in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Our findings show that treated beneficiaries self-reported better quality of life, more stable mental health, and...

Reforming Pensions While Retaining Shareholder Voice

By David H. Webber Public pension and labor union funds have been the driving force in diversified shareholder activism. They have also fended off attacks on jobs and proactively created jobs for fund contributors. These funds currently represent almost $4 trillion in assets over which workers have substantial control. That worker control - and the collective nature of defined benefit pension plans - is the necessary precondition for their shareholder activism. Both worker control and collective investment are directly...

Pension Savings: The Real Return

By Ján Šebo, Ştefan Dragoş Voicu, Carsten Andersen, Aleksandra Mączyńska, Didier Davydoff, Lorenzo Marchionni, Marissa Diaz, Michal Mešťan, Lubomir Christoff, Edin Mujagić, Gabaut Laetitia, Grégoire Naacke, Johannes Hagen, Guillaume Prache, Fernando Herrero In June 2013, BETTER FINANCE published a research report entitled “Private Pensions: The Real Return” which evaluated the return of private pension products after charges, after inflation (“real” returns) and – where possible – after taxation. This first report furthermore identified the factors affecting these returns in...

Pension fund left thousands of Russians without pensions

The Pension Fund of the Russian Federation did not include part of the pension to 170.5 thousand Russians, Life reports. Refusal to pay a pension is most often associated with informal employment, in which the employer did not make contributions to the Pension Fund. Another reason for the shortfall in payments is the loss of data on work experience. Due to legal illiteracy, people often make mistakes themselves - they submit applications for the accrual of fee ahead of time, or they...

Indian government warns of ageing population; says retirement age should rise, schools merge

The Indian government on Thursday warned in a study that its population is going to start to age and it needs to be prepared to merge schools and raise the retirement age. While India should be set to benefit from the so-called “demographic dividend” over the next decade as its working population is set to increase by about 9.7 million a year between 2021-31, that will quickly fade as the nation’s fertility rate plunges below replacement level. The conclusions in the...