editor, Author at Pension Policy International

05JulJuly 5, 2023

It’s time to address the UK’s disability pensions gap

Building a healthy retirement savings pot can be a challenge for anyone as they advance through their working lives. Yet, without question, it poses many additional, arduous challenges for those with disabilities. To put this into perspective, one fifth (22%) of UK adults are currently living with a disability. And people within that community have, on average, a pension wealth that is but a fraction (36%) of the typical UK pension pot. In practice, that means Britons with disabilities nearing retirement...

July 5, 2023

NewsEquality, Pension design, UK

05JulJuly 5, 2023

Canada. DB pension plans improve in second quarter

The health of Canadian defined benefit pension plans continued to improve in the second quarter of 2023, according to consulting firm Mercer. The company said the median solvency ratio of defined benefit plans in its database ticked upward to 119% at the end of June, meaning more than half had a surplus of funds. That’s despite the U.S. debt ceiling scare and the lingering effects of the banking crises south of the border, Mercer said. Pension funds’ investment returns were mostly positive...

July 5, 2023

NewsCanada, Defined Benefit

05JulJuly 5, 2023

Japan. Panel Warns against Leaving Burdens on Shoulders of Future Generations

No matter how urgent and important some issues — such as the low birth rate — may be, the cost of responding to them must not be passed down to future generations. The government should not shirk discussions on the appropriate tax burden. The government’s Tax Commission has submitted to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida a report on proposals for medium- and long-term taxation systems. The panel submitted such a report for the first time in four years, since 2019. The tax...

July 5, 2023

NewsAging, Japan

05JulJuly 5, 2023

UK. Another nail in the coffin for private sector pension capitalism?

Without too much fanfare, the ONS dropped its latest Financial Survey of Pension Schemes data, covering the aftermath of LDI-mageddon. As well as putting data to things we already suspected (eg that private defined benefit schemes (DB) dumped corporate bonds to fund collateral calls), one unheralded development stuck out. Private sector defined benefit schemes have been shedding their equity holdings at a fairly rapid clip for reasons we’ve discussed many times. This trend continued in the fourth quarter of 2022, and...

July 5, 2023

NewsInvestment

04JulJuly 4, 2023

El valor de los activos de pensiones cayó 15,6% en los países de la Ocde durante 2022

El valor de los activos destinados a pensiones disminuyó en la mayoría de los países de la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos (Ocde) en 2022, cayendo en promedio 15,6%, según datos preliminares del informe “Pension Markets in Focus” del organismo internacional. Lo anterior, señalaron en el documento, está dado por un rendimiento negativo de las tasas nominales de la inversión de los fondos. De hecho, explicaron que en el caso de los instrumentos de renta fija -que...

July 4, 2023

NoticiasAdministración de Pensiones, América Latina, Inversión

04JulJuly 4, 2023

México. Sólo 35% de los recursos de las afores son de las mujeres: Consar

La Comisión Nacional del Sistema del Ahorro para el Retiro (Consar) informó, en el marco del 26 aniversario del Sistema del Ahorro para el Retiro (SAR), que los recursos de las trabajadoras representan 1.8 billones de pesos, es decir, 34.8% de los recursos administrados. Además de contar con poco más de un tercio del saldo administrado, la pensión de las mujeres pueden ser hasta 42% menor a la que recibe un hombre, de acuerdo con datos de la Consar. Lo anterior...

July 4, 2023

NoticiasBrecha de Género, Mexico

04JulJuly 4, 2023

California Quietly Shelves $15 Billion Pension Divestment Bill

The California State Assembly has shelved legislation that would have forced the country’s two largest pension funds to divest an estimated $15 billion from oil and gas companies, a major blow to environmental advocates who hoped the funds could be a national model for the divestment movement. SB-252, which passed the state Senate in May, won’t be given a floor vote, according to the bill’s lead author, Senator Lena Gonzalez of Los Angeles County. The legislation has been converted to...

July 4, 2023

NewsClimate crisis, Investment, US

04JulJuly 4, 2023

UK. PPF Chair commits to new strategy to expand sustainability

New strategy outlines four sustainability goals across Responsible Investment, Diversity & Inclusion, community impact, and operations and supply chains. Targets include: Having achieved Net Zero for Scope 1 and 2 for its direct operations, the Fund will aim to reach Net Zero in its operational supply chain and travel emissions by 2035 or sooner. Contributing to the global transition to Net Zero through its investment portfolio and engagement activities. Year-on-year, achieving an increase in representation across all under-represented groups. Ensuring that at least 500...

July 4, 2023

NewsESG, Sustainability, UK

04JulJuly 4, 2023

Kenya. Civil service pension funds leap to Sh41b in 18 months

Some 368,795 civil servants have contributed over Sh41 billion in 18 months to the Public Service Superannuation Scheme (PSSS), a new data show. The scheme’s membership shot from 330,318 in its introductory month in January 2021 when the government introduced PSSS as the preferred savings and retirement scheme in the public service sector to facilitate free movement of staff in and out of the sector Under this scheme, public service workers contributed two per cent of their gross pay towards retirement...

July 4, 2023

NewsKenya, savings

04JulJuly 4, 2023

The Silver Wave: China’s Rapidly Aging Population and the Rise of Elderly Education

By 2030, 1 in 6 people in the world will be aged 60 years or over. By 2050, the world’s population of people aged 60 years and older will double (2.1 billion). The number of persons aged 80 years or older is expected to triple between 2022 and 2050 to reach 600 million. China has one of the fastest-growing aging populations in the world. There were 280 million people aged 60 and above in China at the end of 2022,...

July 4, 2023

NewsAging, China, Financial Literacy

July 2023