June 2020

Can Low Retirement Savings Be Rationalized?

By John B. Shoven, Sita Slavov, John G. Watson Simple presentations of the life cycle model often suggest a constant level of real consumption in retirement. Similarly, financial planners commonly suggest that people save for retirement in such a way as to enable them to maintain a level retirement standard of living equal to their standard of living while working. However, constant consumption with age is only optimal under the precise and unlikely condition that the subjective rate of...

Nigeria ranks 64th in pension adequacy index –Report

The Allianz Group has put Nigeria in the 64th position in the global ranking of pension development, highlighting the need for further pension reforms in the country. The first edition of the group’s pension report, titled ‘Allianz Global Pension Report 2020: Ready or not’, analysed different country’s pension systems with its proprietary pension indicator, called Allianz Pension Indicator. The API examined the pension systems in terms of sustainability and adequacy of 70 countries to provide a comprehensive view of the...

May 2020

Allianz pension report 2020 the silver swan

By Allianz Even before the Covid-19 outbreak, societies were becoming more and more fragmented over several social fault lines: culture, education, wealth, place of residence. Many of these overlap: The cosmopolitan, well-educated, wealthy people live in (big) cities, whereas more conservative, low-skilled workers tend to live in the periphery. There is, however, one important social fault line that cuts through all these identities: the generation gap. With demographic and climate change (and now the coronavirus pandemic), the generational...

The Effect of Workplace Pensions on Household Saving: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Taiwan

By Tzu‐Ting Yang Population aging causes financial imbalances in pay‐as‐you‐go public pension programs. To remedy this problem, while ensuring the adequacy of retirement savings for employees, many countries complement or substitute public pensions by regulating their workplace pensions. This article exploits a pension reform in Taiwan that has mandated, since 2005, that all private‐sector employers contribute at least 6 percent of an employee's monthly wage to an individual pension account. I use workers in the unaffected sectors as a...

Algeria approves 2-7% increase in retirement pensions

Algeria’s government has approved increases in retirement pensions ranging from 2% to 7%, the labour ministry said on Saturday, despite financial problems facing the oil exporting North African country. The OPEC member’s public finances have come under pressure after a sharp fall in global crude oil prices caused energy earnings, the main source of government revenue, to drop significantly. President Abdelmadjid Tennoune has already announced a 50% cut in public spending and delays to planned projects in several sectors...

February 2020

Australia. Jobs drought for older workers increases risk of ‘pension poverty’

Older Australians are missing out on job opportunities and seeing their hopes for a secure and dignified retirement evaporate, Labor leader Anthony Albanese said. “Today, over 170,000 Australians aged between 55 and 64 are on unemployment benefits just when they should be building their nest egg,” Mr Albanese told the Queensland Media Club on Wednesday. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures show that the number of older Australians out of work has increased over the past five years, despite...

Target Date Funds and Portfolio Choice in 401(k) Plans

By Olivia S. Mitchell, Stephen P. Utkus Target date funds in corporate retirement plans grew from $5B in 2000 to $734B in 2018, partly because federal regulation sanctioned these as default investments in automatic enrollment plans. We show that adopters delegated pension investment decisions to fund managers selected by plan sponsors. Including these funds in retirement saving menus raised equity shares, boosted bond exposures, curtailed cash/company stock holdings, and reduced idiosyncratic risk. The adoption of low-cost target date funds...

Measuring the ethnicity pensions gap

By The people´s pension Last year The People’s Pension examined in detail the drivers of the yawning gap in pension income between women and men, as the first part of a series examining the UK’s ‘under-pensioned’. Our second report focuses on another dramatically underpensioned group: ethnic minorities. New calculations by The People’s Pension reveal that the UK’s overall ethnicity pension gap – the percentage difference in pension income for pensioners who belong to an ethnic minority group compared to pensioners...

January 2020

Japan. Wanted: rational pension reform

The government is required by law to examine the long-term financial health of Japan’s public pension system every five years. In the latest review released last August, it was confirmed that in most of the scenarios considered, the income substitution rate — the ratio of pension payouts to the after-tax income of the working generation — will be maintained at 50 percent or more. Read also The 7 biggest fintech trends to watch in 2020 This means that retirees will...

Spanish Government Gives Green Light To 0.9% Pension Increase

The first ministers cabinet meeting in Spain on Tuesday approved the rise in pensions by 0.9%. The increase will be applied retroactively from January 1 and will affect and will affect more than 10 million Spaniards, both contributory and non-contributory and passive class pensions. Read Also United Arab Emirates: The Introduction Of The DIFC Employee Workplace Savings Plan And Other Qualifying Schemes The 0.9% rise coincides with the average CPI estimate. If prices rise above that figure, the Government will compensate...