Equality Archives - Pension Policy International

02OctOctober 2, 2026

Redistribution with Unequal Life Expectancy

By Sebastian Köhne I study life-expectancy inequality in a Mirrleesian life-cycle framework with pension-linked fiscal externalities and private retirement saving. Heterogeneous longevity affects optimal redistribution by changing both the expected fiscal cost of pension benefits and the mapping from disposable income into social marginal welfare. I derive an ABCD optimal tax formula that incorporates these efficiency and equity effects. Calibrated to the U.S. economy, the model implies that accounting for heterogeneous longevity lowers optimal marginal tax rates, particularly at the...

October 2, 2026

Articles, Savings2026, Equality, Longevity, savings, Taxation

11SepSeptember 11, 2026

Redistribution through Taxes or Pensions? Optimal Income Tax and Pension Progressivity

By Burkhard Heer & Mark M. Trede We develop a medium-scale overlapping-generations model with endogenous labor supply and skill premium to study optimal income redistribution using progressive labor income taxes and pensions. The model is calibrated to the four countries USA, Great Britain, Italy and Germany which differ substantially in their tax and pension systems, demographics, and skill shares among workers. Optimal pension benefits are proportional to lifetime contributions in all four countries, while the optimal degree of income tax...

September 11, 2026

Articles, Pension design2026, Equality, Social Security, Taxation

08SepSeptember 8, 2026

Ageing Well for Indigenous Peoples: Closing the Health Equity Gap

On August 10, International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples was observed–a day to honour the cultures and traditions of Indigenous populations. There are an estimated 476 million Indigenous people globally, living across 90 countries and representing more than 5000 different cultures. Despite the vast diversity in social, cultural, economic, and political characteristics, Indigenous peoples face similar adversities, rooted in common histories of colonialism and oppression that removed ancestral lands and aimed to destroy cultural identities. Indigenous populations worldwide...

September 8, 2026

NewsAging, Equality, Health

05AugAugust 5, 2026

Can Latin America Formalise Work Without Deepening Inequality?

Latin America and the Caribbean face a labour-market contradiction that has persisted for decades: policies designed to protect workers can sometimes make formal employment more expensive, leaving millions outside the systems intended to support them. The Inter-American Development Bank is calling for a broad redesign of labour regulation, social protection and workforce training across the region. Its report, Making Labor Markets Work: Improving Productivity and Workers’ Welfare in Latin America and the Caribbean, argues that governments do not have to choose...

August 5, 2026

NewsEquality, Informal Sector, Latin America

06JulJuly 6, 2026

The other side of longevity: more years of life, but also greater inequality

Longevity is one of the great economic and scientific achievements of the last century, but it risks becoming a new source of deep social division. Today, it is no longer enough to focus on how long we will live: the real question is who will be able to live longer in good health and who, on the other hand, will accumulate, over the course of their lives, disadvantages that are bound to result in additional years of frailty. This was...

July 6, 2026

NewsEquality, Longevity

15JunJune 15, 2026

Retirement Wealth Across Europe: A Country-by-Country Comparison

Retirement wealth differs greatly across European nations, affecting living standards in ways that go beyond what pension income alone can provide, according to the European Central Bank's Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) released in mid-2023. In certain countries, older households possess more than 30 times the wealth of their counterparts elsewhere, illustrating how housing, pensions, and family assistance influence financial security in later years. Within the euro area, households aged 65 to 74 have a median net wealth of EUR185,300....

June 15, 2026

NewsEquality, Europe, Income

02JunJune 2, 2026

South Korea. [Retirement Pension Investment Strategy] “During Booms, Focus on Indexes… Systematic Investing Is Key to Beating Volatility”

Last year, for the first time ever, the accumulated amount of retirement pension funds in Korea surpassed 500 trillion won, illustrating the continuous growth of the domestic retirement pension market. In addition, the Korean stock market has been experiencing a record-breaking bull run, and the domestic exchange-traded fund (ETF) market has also expanded to 500 trillion won, leading to greater public interest in financial investment than ever before. However, despite this rapid growth, the polarization of returns among retirement...

June 2, 2026

NewsEquality, Returns, South Korea

15MayMay 15, 2026

A PRISMA-Based Systematic Review of Gender Inequality in Uruguay’s Pension System

By Emre Kurt This paper examines the gendered effects of pension and retirement systems in Uruguay through a systematic literature review, motivated by persistent inequalities arising from contributory social protection models that reflect labor-market disparities and unequal caregiving responsibilities. Using the PRISMA 2020 framework, the study identifies and evaluates 21 relevant studies selected from an initial pool of 205 records, applying a gender-audit approach to distinguish between research with central and partial gender analysis. The findings reveal a methodologically diverse...

May 15, 2026

Articles, System Characterization2026, Equality, Gender Gap, Public Policy, Uruguay

20MarMarch 20, 2026

Non-contributory Pension Programs and Intra-household Inequality

By José L. Casco Non-contributory pension schemes are increasingly prevalent as countries seek to combat poverty, yet their role in shaping inequality remains underexplored. This paper studies how such programs alter intra-household inequality using data from Mexican household income and expenditure surveys. The analysis first examines a local pension program in Mexico City, embedding an age-based quasi-experimental design to identify beneficiaries within a structural model of extended households. Results show that the program shifted resources from men to women and...

March 20, 2026

Articles, Pension Management2026, Equality, Gender Gap, Mexico, Social Pensions

13MarMarch 13, 2026

Why Social Security Is Essential to Measuring Wealth Inequality

By Knowledge at Wharton Staff In this Q&A, professor Sylvain Catherine discusses why including Social Security fundamentally changes how we measure wealth inequality. His paper “Social Security and Trends in Wealth Inequality” was co-authored by Max Miller and Natasha Sarin and recently won the Dimensional Fund Advisors First Prize from the American Finance Association. The paper was previously awarded the Marshall Blume Prize in Financial Research from Wharton’s Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research, given annually to the best...

March 13, 2026

Articles, System Characterization2026, Coverage, Equality, Social Security, System sustainability, US

October 2026

Redistribution with Unequal Life Expectancy

September 2026

Ageing Well for Indigenous Peoples: Closing the Health Equity Gap

August 2026

Can Latin America Formalise Work Without Deepening Inequality?

July 2026

The other side of longevity: more years of life, but also greater inequality

June 2026

Retirement Wealth Across Europe: A Country-by-Country Comparison

South Korea. [Retirement Pension Investment Strategy] “During Booms, Focus on Indexes… Systematic Investing Is Key to Beating Volatility”

May 2026

A PRISMA-Based Systematic Review of Gender Inequality in Uruguay’s Pension System

March 2026