July 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

México. Sistema de Ahorro para el Retiro ‘cumple’ 26 años: ¿Cómo van las Afores?

Este 1 de julio se celebra el 26 aniversario del Sistema de Ahorro para el Retiro (SAR). Actualmente, los recursos administrados por las Afores suman 5.49 billones de pesos, lo que equivale a 18.92 por ciento del Producto Interno Bruto (PIB), reportó la Comisión Nacional del Sistema de Ahorro para el Retiro (Consar). En su “cumpleaños” se informó que del total de recursos gestionados por el SAR, 49.9 por ciento son los rendimientos netos que se han generado a lo...

Propondrán en Ecuador aumentar los años de trabajo para jubilarse

El equipo, designado en enero por el presidente de la República, Guillermo Lasso, presentará este lunes sus recomendaciones al mandatario luego de más de cinco meses de análisis. En medio de críticas de organizaciones sociales y sindicales, el grupo liderado por Augusto de la Torre, exjefe del Banco Mundial para América Latina, fue encargado de evaluar cómo hacer sostenibles los seguros de invalidez, vejez y muerte. Según el canal Teleamazonas, el colectivo presentará entre sus propuestas para reducir el déficit del...