March 2025
07Mar

Understanding the Gender Pension Gap in Canada

By Elizabeth Shilton The gender pension gap in Canada measures the gender difference in combined income from Canada’s 3-pillar system of retirement income instruments: Old Age Security/Guaranteed Income Supplement, Canada Pension Plan/ Quebec Pension Plan and private pensions (including RRSP/RRIF income). In 1976 - the first year for which we have meaningful statistics – that gap stood at 15%, and it has stubbornly refused to close despite substantial increases in overall retirement income and massive advances in women’s labour market engagement...

March 7, 2025
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07Mar

The Gender Pensions Gap

By Khadijah Zaidi & James Mirza-Davies The gender pensions gap refers to differences in retirement income or retirement wealth for men and women, and it can be measured in different ways. The gender pensions gap is mainly caused by the gender pay gap. There are however additional causal factors relating specifically to pensions, such as historic state pension rules, the impact of auto-enrolment rules on different types of workers, and how divorce settlements treat pensions. The Work and Pensions Committee...

March 7, 2025
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February 2025
21Feb

Multiemployer Pension Funding Study: Year-end 2024

By Tim Connor,Timothy Herman,Rex Barker & Nina Lantz The amounts in Figure 1 reflect the $70 billion in SFA granted to 97 plans that received the funds by December 31, 2024, including $16 billion paid during 2024. Without the SFA program, the aggregate funded percentage would be approximately 89%. The liabilities in Figure 1 are projected using discount rates equal to each plan’s actuarial assumed return on assets. Assumed returns generally fall between 6.0% and 8.0%, with a weighted average interest...

February 21, 2025
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January 2025
31Jan

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...

January 31, 2025
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31Jan

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...

January 31, 2025
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31Jan

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...

January 31, 2025
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24Jan

2024 BlackRock Read on Retirement

By BlackRock Retirement. It’s deeply personal. And yet, many of the challenges workers face are common and shared. The relationship someone new to the workforce has with retirement is likely very different than that of someone later in their career. Layer in factors like individual experience and a lack of access to the right tools, opportunities and guidance… and suddenly the path can get complex. But we’re rethinking retirement – because it doesn’t have to be. Get the report here.

January 24, 2025
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December 2024
06Dec

Fintech, Visual Attention, and Financial Inclusion: A Field Experiment on Migrant Remittances

By Eduardo Nakasone, Máximo Torero & Angelino Viceisza Migrant remittances are significant but remain relatively costly to send. Policymakers have argued that fintech, specifically, comparison websites like kayak.com but for sending money, can boost financial inclusion and reduce remittance prices. Yet, little is known about how migrants with limited education and trust in digital methods interact with fintech. We conduct a field experiment on a comparison website and vary remittance-company attributes shown to migrants, specifically, the time for delivery and...

December 6, 2024
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04Dec

Pension Markets in Focus 2024

By Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Pension Markets in Focus provides detailed and comparable statistics on asset-backed pensions around the world. This publication aims to help policy makers, regulators and other stakeholders evaluate the design and operation of pension systems, and to support policy discussions through international comparisons. Pension Markets in Focus is published annually. A preliminary version is published in June based on initial data on selected variables, and the final version in the last quarter of the year based on...

December 4, 2024
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November 2024
22Nov

Public Pension Funding Index November 2024

By Rick Gordon & Rebecca A. Sielman October 2024 broke the five-month positive investment return streak for public pensions, prompting a decrease in the estimated funded status of the 100 largest U.S. public pension plans from 82.8% as of September 30, 2024, to 81.2% as of October 31, 2024, as measured by the Milliman 100 Public Pension Funding Index (PPFI). We estimate a calendar year-to-date investment return of 7.6% through the end of October. We have projected the aggregate funded status forward from October...

November 22, 2024
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