June 2023

Projections of the Size and Composition of the U.S. Population: 2014 to 2060

By Sandra L. Colby & Jennifer M. Ortman  Between 2014 and 2060, the U.S. population is projected to increase from 319 million to 417 million, reaching 400 million in 2051. The U.S. population is projected to grow more slowly in future decades than in the recent past, as these projections assume that fertility rates will continue to decline and that there will be a modest decline in the overall rate of net international migration. By 2030, one in five Americans...

Why Over 90% of Sub-Saharan African Workers Lack Pension Plan

Why Over 90% of Sub-Saharan African Workers Lack Pension Plan In the past six months, France has seen an uproar of aggravated workers who have taken to the streets to protest the government's new pension reform. In April, France's Constitutional Council, which plays a similar role to the US Supreme Court, approved the most controversial part of the reform - raising the retirement age from 62 to 64. On May 1, International Workers Day, around 112,000 people participated in the largest...

May 2023

Access to Pensions, Old-Age Support, and Child Investment in the People’s Republic of China

By Xiaoyue Shan & Albert Park This paper studies how access to public pensions affects old-age support and child investment in traditional societies. Guided by predictions from an overlapping generations model, we analyze the influences of a new pension program in rural People’s Republic of China, using a difference-in-differences approach. We find that the program crowds out transfers from working-age adults, especially men, to their elderly parents. Interestingly, the impact on child investment significantly differs by child gender. While adult...

What’s the State of Sub-Saharan Africa’s Pension Savings?

Less than 10% of the workers in sub-Saharan Africa save for old age, the lowest rate for any region in the world. That implies most of the breadwinners today won’t be able to afford basic items after retirement. A pension plan is meant to commit employers to make regular savings so that employees will continue to earn after retirement. Pension schemes in sub-Saharan African countries are characterised by low contributions due to low earnings, high informality, high financial illiteracy levels and lack...

Philippines. Millions sans pension a ‘ticking time bomb’

The massive protests over the highly unpopular legislation that France passed, raising its retirement age from 62 to 64 to save its pension system, may be a window to a similar future in the Philippines, with its own “ticking time bomb” in its pension scheme. University of the Philippines School of Labor and Industrial Relations (UP-SOLAIR) professor Emily Christi A. Cabegin warned of this scenario, where the government may have to spend millions of pesos to take care of thousands...

Ghana. Only about 1.9m out of 10 million workers are covered under SSNIT scheme – SSNIT boss

Only about 1.9 million of the 10 million or so workers in the country are covered under the Social Security and National Insurance (SSNIT) Scheme. According to the Director General of SSNIT, Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, what is more, disturbing is that only about 32,000, representing 1.68% of active contributors, are self-employed. This is despite the fact that the majority of workers in the country are self-employed and/or work in the informal sector. Speaking at the launch of the SEED – a campaign...

Ghana. SSNIT expands coverage of basic social security scheme to self-employed persons

The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has launched the Self-Employed Enrolment Drive (SEED), a product geared towards expanding coverage of the basic national social security scheme to self-employed Ghanaians. Dr John Ofori-Koranteng, Director-General of SSNIT, speaking at the launch of the product in Kumasi, said the aim was to redefine social security in Ghana and give hope to the self-employed to be able to retire in dignity and comfort. In pursuit of this agenda, the management of SSNIT had...

International Comparison of Pension Systems: An Investigation from Consumers’ Viewpoint

By Hongmu Lee, Gianni Nicolini & Man Cho  A secure and adequate pension system is central to establishing a welfare state. Given that, this book aims to document a set of diverse Public policy issues on the financial consumers standpoint that are observed in different countries. In this introductory chapter, we attempt to summarize those policy issues that emerged from the survey of the countries included with respect to each of the three dimensions- adequacy, coverage, and sustainability.   Book "here"

April 2023

Thailand: Pensions and Farmers’ Subsidies Top Election Agenda

With the kingdom’s population ageing and the debt-ridden farmers becoming restless, Thailand’s political parties are gearing up for the May 14 elections offering populist policies to woo the votes of both sectors of the population. Over 52 million people are eligible to vote for electing 500 members to the House of Representatives. With campaigning for the election gathering momentum since December 2022, Thai political parties have announced a range of attractive policies to win their votes. These include subsidies for...

South Africa ranked bottom in global pensions rankings

The South African pension system has been ranked at the bottom of a global ranking of 75 countries by financial services company Allianz. The Allianz Pension Index, published in the firm’s Global Pension Report, ranked countries based on three pillars: analysis of basic demographic and fiscal conditions; determination of the sustainability (eg funding and contribution periods) and adequacy (eg degree of diffusion and pension level) of the pension system. “With an overall score of 4.2, the South African pension system is...