February 2025

Challenges and concerns surrounding China’s retirement age reform

By China Labour Bulletin China is currently grappling with a pressing demographic challenge, marked by record-low birth rates and low retirement ages, leading to a continuous decline in the working-age population. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the working-age population dropped to 61.3% in 2023, down from 62% the previous year. The shrinking workforce and ageing population are increasingly straining China’s pension system. Current projections indicate that, without intervention, the social security system’s resources will be depleted by 2035. In response to...

Smaller than We Thought? The Effect of Automatic Savings Policies

By James J. Choi, David Laibson, Jordan Cammarota, Richard Lombardo & John Beshears Medium- and long-run dynamics undermine the effect of automatic enrollment and default savings-rate auto-escalation on retirement savings. Our analysis of nine 401(k) plans incorporates the facts that employees frequently leave firms (often before matching contributions from their employer have fully vested), a large percentage of 401(k) balances are withdrawn upon employment separation, and many employees opt out of auto-escalation. Steady-state saving rates increase by 0.6% of income due to automatic enrollment and...

Encuesta Nacional de Ocupación y Empleo (ENOE) Indicadores de Ocupación y Empleo

Por INEGI  La Encuesta Nacional de Ocupación y Empleo (ENOE) muestra el comportamiento del mercado laboral mexicano. Esta ofrece datos mensuales de la población económicamente activa (PEA), la ocupación, la informalidad laboral, la subocupación y la desocupación.1 En esta ocasión, no se realizó un comparativo de los resultados entre noviembre de 2024 y noviembre de 2023, porque las cifras de este último periodo no incluyen información de Guerrero. Lo anterior es consecuencia de las afectaciones que originó el huracán Otis. En noviembre...

Informe sobre el futuro del empleo 2025

Por Foro Económico Mundial El Informe sobre el futuro del empleo 2025 reúne la perspectiva de más de 1000 empleadores líderes a nivel mundial, que en conjunto representan a más de 14 millones de trabajadores en 22 grupos industriales y 55 economías de todo el mundo, para examinar cómo las macrotendencias impactan los empleos y las habilidades, y las estrategias de transformación de la fuerza laboral. Los empleadores planean emprender en respuesta, a lo largo del período de 2025 a...

Políticas públicas y derechos humanos de las personas mayores en la Europa mediterránea y en América Latina y el Caribe: seguridad económica, salud y cuidados de larga duración

Por Aída Díaz-Tendero & Gibrán Cruz-Martínez El envejecimiento de la población se caracteriza por ser un fenómeno global y no exclusivo de los países más desarrollados. La feminización del envejecimiento es también global y tiene repercusiones en los ámbitos de la salud, la seguridad económica y los cuidados de largo plazo o larga duración. Estas tres áreas, señaladas por Naciones Unidas como prioritarias en relación a las personas mayores (junto a los medioambientes favorables) han sido estudiadas desde diferentes disciplinas...

January 2025

NIRS’ Pensionomics 2025 Report

By Andrew Clark Earlier this month, the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS) released its bi-annual Pensionomics report, which details how spending from defined-benefit pensions boosts economies in communities nationwide and continues to be a reliable economic driver for millions of people. The report examines the impact of pensions on local economies nationwide by calculating the benefits paid to retirees and the subsequent spending generated by these benefits. This analysis includes tax revenue and local expenditures, which stimulate the broader economy, leading...

Allianz Global Pension Report 2025: Time to walk the talk

By Allianz Research  Allianz published the third edition of its “Global Pension Report”, which analyzes 71 pension systems around the globe with the help of the company's own “Allianz Pension Index” (API). The indicator consists of three pillars: analysis of the demographic and fiscal situation, and an assessment of the sustainability (e.g. financing and contribution periods) and adequacy (e.g. coverage and pension levels) of the pension system. A total of 40 parameters are taken into account, with scores between 1...

Pensions investment outlook 2025: U.S. policy uncertainty clouds road ahead

By Investment Managers The coming year will likely be characterized by three main drivers: the U.S.’s politically driven polices, structural economic 1 The implicit yield curve based on the floating rates associated with an interest rate swap. weaknesses and political uncertainty in Europe, and China’s restructuring of its troubled property market. Overall, our forecasts suggest global growth looks set to continue its 2024 pace of 3.2% in 2025, before easing in 2026 to 2.9%. This outlook could be compounded by the implementation...

Household Saving in Japan: The Past, Present, and Future

By Charles Yuji Horioka This paper explores the determinants of the level of, and trends over time in, Japan’s household saving rate, with emphasis on the impact of the age structure of the population, and makes projections about future trends therein. The paper finds that Japan’s household saving rate has not always been high either absolutely or relative to other countries and that it was only during the 1961-86 period that it exceeded 15%. Past and future trends in Japan’s...

Financial Inclusion Across the United States

By Motohiro Yogo, Andrew Whitten & Natalie Cox We study retirement and bank account participation for the universe of U.S. households with a member aged 50 to 59 in the administrative tax data. ZCTA-level average income, income inequality, and racial composition predict retirement account participation for low-income households, conditional on household income and regional price parities. Income inequality also predicts bank account participation for low-income households. We estimate the causal effect of access to an employer retirement plan on participation. Recent policy proposals...