August 2020

04Aug

Coronavirus is creating retirement insecurity. These 10 steps can diffuse the timebomb of an ageing population

To redesign a retirement that builds the necessary financial resilience for longer lives, the World Economic Forum and Mercer have created a ten-point checklist to redesign retirement. Safeguarding financial wellness requires an all-encompassing view of a person. This means considering their tangible assets (including savings and property), but also less tangible assets such as health, skills and career readiness to work longer. It will also require coordinated efforts across stakeholder groups, including individuals, employers, financial services providers and governments....

August 4, 2020
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July 2020

31Jul

Women Working Longer: Increased Employment at Older Ages

By Claudia Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz Today, more American women than ever before stay in the workforce into their sixties and seventies. This trend emerged in the 1980s, and has persisted during the past three decades, despite substantial changes in macroeconomic conditions. Why is this so? Today’s older American women work full-time jobs at greater rates than women in other developed countries. In Women Working Longer, editors...

July 31, 2020
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17Jul

World is Facing a Population Bust

In his last book, "Billions and Billions," published in 1997, Carl Sagan wrote: “There is a well-documented worldwide correlation between poverty and high birthrates … exponential population growth slows down or stops when grinding poverty disappears. This is called demographic transition.” More recently, John Ibbitson and Darrell Bricker wrote in their book, "Empty Planet": Read also Australia. Low income earners get further support The great defining event of the twenty-first century — one of the great defining events in human...

July 17, 2020
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15Jul

Ireland. Ageing population will have ‘substantial’ impact on government debt – IFAC

The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (IFAC) has warned that Ireland will soon become one of the fastest ageing populations in the EU. In its first Long Term Sustainability Report, the council said the impact on government debt will be "substantial" and "long-lasting". The percentage of the population aged 65 and over, compared to the numbers aged 15-64, will more than double from 22% today to almost 47% in 2050. This means relatively fewer people working to sustain higher spending...

July 15, 2020
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10Jul

Japan’s Deadly Combination: Climate Change and an Aging Society

The forecast was dire: close to nine inches of rain in a single day. Officials in Kuma, a village on the banks of a fast-moving river in southwestern Japan, urged everyone to evacuate. Yet inside the Senjuen nursing home, the 70 residents were left in place. The decision proved disastrous. The rain that fell early Saturday was even worse than expected, a blinding downpour that soon inundated the village’s streets. Caretakers in the nursing home, which lacked an elevator,...

July 10, 2020
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06Jul

Choosing Retirement Investments Based On Age Alone Is Faulty

I was talking with a young couple the other week regarding their retirement investment selection in their 401(k) plan. They both had selected choices based upon their retirement age. They will hit that age in 2050. If you aren’t retiring for 30 years, that might seem like a good choice. But what does that year really mean when it comes to investing for retirement? This type of investment approach is typically referred to as a target-date strategy. I gave...

July 6, 2020
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03Jul

Greece. Open call to foreign pensioners

Greece is about to issue an open invitation to foreign pensioners to relocate their tax domicile to Greece, with a bill to that effect set to be put up for consultation today or on Monday, Finance Minister Christos Staikouras stated on Thursday. He also reiterated his view that the economy will not shrink any more than 8% this year. In an interview on Skai Radio Staikouras revealed the bill is ready for public consultation, offering tax incentives to pensioners...

July 3, 2020
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June 2020
22Jun

Norway’s Ageing Population Problem

Right now, the biggest problem faced by Norway is the necessary transition away from the oil and gas industry. The country's economy has been fuelled by the deposits under the Norwegian continental shelf for decades. With reservoirs running dry, the economy needs to diversify. But with investment in modern technologies such as electric battery and charging infrastructure, offshore wind, and autonomous shipping, Norway's government does at least have a plan. The same can't be said, yet, for the problem...

June 22, 2020
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20Jun

Wealth Distribution and Retirement Preparation Among Early Savers

By: Alice Henriques, Lindsay Jacobs, Elizabeth Llanes, Kevin B. Moore, Jeffrey P. Thompson. This paper develops a new combined wealth measure using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, by augmenting data on net worth with estimates of defined benefit (DB) pension wealth and expected Social Security wealth. We use this combined wealth concept to explore retirement preparation among groups of households in their pre-retirement years (40-49 and 50-59) and also to explore the concentration of wealth. We find...

June 20, 2020
Adequacy, Articles, Savings, ,
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19Jun

People in Germany are continuing to retire later and later

The average age at which people in Germany enter retirement has risen again over the past year, from 64,1 years in 2018 to 64,3 years in 2019. The age for women was particularly affected, mainly due to the Mother’s Pension II. Pension age for women rises sharply According to the German Pension Insurance Federation (Deutsche Rentenversicherung), the average age at which people start to draw their pensions has risen over the course of the last year. In 2018, the...

June 19, 2020
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