May 2026

Chile’s Pension Reform: A Good Idea Running Out of Chances

By Dr. Arturo Cifuentes Original ideas seldom get a second chance to be implemented successfully. The Chilean pension system is one of the few exceptions. To grasp how much is at stake in the coming months—a third opportunity might never happen—we need to go back to its origins and identify the key events that shaped its evolution. The Chilean pension system was the brainchild of José Piñera, who, as minister of labor and social security, conceived its basic architecture in 1981. The...

March 2026

Risks, returns and realism: Mapping the future of pension investment

By Nicolas Firzli and Nick Sherry  Former Australian pensions minister Nick Sherry and World Pensions Forum director M Nicolas J Firzli explain their new model for visualising the future of asset allocation as interest in private markets and productive finance increases. We are living in the Age of Geo-Economics – defined by the second Trump presidency, the accelerating Sino-American technological rivalry, and the weaponisation of trade, finance and central banking – shaping the Fifth Industrial Revolution – bringing us artificial intelligence, advanced...

January 2026

The gig economy is not the future of work — it’s a warning

By Quah Boon Huat   This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on January 5, 2026 - January 11, 2026 Affan Kurniawan, a 21-year-old ride-hailing driver and his family’s breadwinner, should have been invisible to power. On Aug 28 last year, an armoured police vehicle crushed him as it chased protesters. The video of his death seared Indonesia. Affan was not a protester. He was working — delivering food, saving for a home, keeping his family afloat. His killing ripped through Indonesia,...

August 2025

Nigeria’s wage and pension crisis

By Shu’aibu Usman Leman   Earlier this month, the United States government released a sobering assessment of Nigeria’s human rights record in its 2024 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Among the stark revelations was the shamefully low national minimum wage of ₦70,000—a figure described as “woefully inadequate” amid rising inflation, a weakened naira, and an ever-worsening cost of living. At just $47.90 per month by current exchange rates, this wage is not merely insufficient—it is an affront to human dignity. In...

Analysis: The US$400 trillion global retirement gap

By Paul Mackintosh   In a recent discussion with the World Economic Forum (WEF), Yie-Hsin Hung, chief executive officer of State Street Investment Management, addressed the global retirement savings gap, estimated to have hit some US$50 trillion ten years ago and forecast to reach around $400 trillion by 2050. The US is expected to account for 33% of the $400 trillion, China, 30%, and India, 20%. In the US, those who are 45- 60 years old or Generation X save on average around...

China’s pension system needs an overhaul because it is neither fair nor sustainable

By Zhou Xin Mainland China’s pension system has again become an issue of debate after the Supreme People’s Court ruled that any private agreement between employers and employees to evade payment of retirement funds was invalid. While the legal interpretation reiterated existing laws and regulations, it struck a nerve with the population and triggered doubts about the pension system’s fairness and sustainability. China’s pay-as-you-go system, which requires workers to contribute funds into a state-managed pool to pay for their retirement, essentially serves as a...

US. Increasing Social Security’s Retirement Age…

By Andrew G. Biggs Without forgetting that some people aren’t living longer. I have a new policy brief co-authored with John Shoven of Stanford looking at how we might address part of Social Security’s funding gap by raising the retirement age, but doing it in a way that account for differential mortality by income — the fact that rich people tend to live longer than the poor, which means that rich people are contributing more to Social Security’s insolvency than are the poor. The trick...

July 2025

¿Al fin todos los colombianos deberán cotizar en Colpensiones?

Por: Sergio Rodríguez Sarmiento    La Corte Constitucional se alista para estudiar, de nuevo, el proyecto de reforma pensional que aprobó la Cámara de Representantes, por segunda ocasión. Dentro del análisis que hará el alto tribunal, el futuro de las cotizaciones en Colpensiones es uno de los más importantes. De acuerdo con el legislativo, las modificaciones sobre los nuevos pilares de ahorro incluyen el hecho de que desaparezca la competencia que existía entre fondos privados y el público. Con esto de base, la reforma no...

June 2025

Chile. Reforma de pensiones: una tarea silenciosa, pero crucial

Por Paulina Yazigi   Luego de más de dos años de una intensa y ruidosa discusión sobre la reforma de pensiones —con amplio despliegue mediático y la participación de técnicos, parlamentarios, autoridades y regulador, gremios y opinión pública— hoy nos abocamos al árido camino de su implementación. La diferencia hoy es que este es un trabajo bastante silencioso. Pero no debería serlo. Esta nueva fase es mucho menos visible, y con otros actores principales. Con la implementación de la reforma, se deberán abordar casi...

March 2025

On International Women’s Day, let’s focus on the gender pension gap

By Ivana Zanardo   Women in the workforce have made significant strides in recent decades: the gender wage gap is shrinking and more women hold a growing share of senior leadership positions at Canadian companies. But as we celebrate International Women’s Day, there’s another gap that should get more attention – the gender pension gap. Despite advancements made in the workplace, according to Stats Canada, women still face an annual income gap of 29 per cent. And what’s more worrisome is that we...