January 2023

The Effect of Pension Wealth on Employment

By Sebastian Becker, Hermann Buslei, Johannes Geyer & Peter Haan This study provides novel evidence about the pension wealth elasticity of employment. For the identification we exploit reform-induced variation of pension wealth that is related to the number of children but which does not affect the implicit tax rate of employment. We use a difference-in-differences estimator based on administrative data from the German pension insurance and find that, on average, the negative employment effect of pension wealth is significant and economically...

December 2022

UK. More than 8.6mn missing out on workplace pension savings

More than 8.6mn people from “underpensioned” groups are missing out on workplace pension savings, according to a report by Now Pensions. The report, published on December 7 in collaboration with the Pensions Policy Institute, found a number of common factors within these groups that are causing barriers to saving, including non-traditional work patterns, a lower percentage of homeownership, and being impacted by inequalities in the labour market. People from underpensioned groups – including ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, carers and single...

October 2022

Australia must urgently fix pensions gender gap

Australia must urgently address the pensions gender gap in the upcoming federal budget, warns a body representing the nation’s A$3.3 trillion (US$2.1 trillion or RM9.84 trillion) of retirement savings. The government needs to make swift reforms to an industry that currently leaves retired Australian women with typically 23.1% less in their pension accounts than men, according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA). Pension payments should be made to workers on paid parental leave following the birth or adoption...

September 2022

Women at the heart of Swiss pension reform vote

Switzerland votes Sunday on a divisive pension reform plan the government says is vital to safeguard benefits, including a controversial push to raise the retirement age for women. After two previous attempts in 2004 and 2017, Bern is hoping it can finally garner enough votes for its bid to "stabilise" Switzerland's old age security system, at risk of being submerged by the giant baby boomer generation reaching retirement age as life expectancy rises. One tool for raising more income for the...

African Women Impact Fund launches with USD$60 million commitment to drive an inclusive investment environment

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and Standard Bank Group, with the support of the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), the Motor Industry Retirement Funds (MIRF) and Copartes Pension Fund and the African Union Commission (AUC), have announced the African Women Impact Fund (AWIF) Initiative's achievement of its first commitment of USD$60 million. The announcement was made at the inaugural The Global Africa Business Initiative, held from 18 – 19 September during the week of the United...

Switzerland. Pensions vote: ‘the reform comes at the expense of women’

Vania Alleva, the boss of Switzerland’s largest trade union, says wage discrimination should be eliminated before women are made to work longer. She wants voters to say ‘no’ to a reform of the old-age pension system on September 25. The central plank of the reform is an increase in the retirement age for women from 64 to 65, putting them on an equal footing with men. Government, parliament, and parties from the right and centre all say this is a...

July 2022

Gender Pay Gap Report 2021: Reporting our progress

By Legal and General In 2021, we have once again seen a continued, progressive narrowing of our pay gap, from 26.6% to 24.1%. This progress reflects the focus we have applied over the past year to creating a more diverse workforce and a more inclusive workplace where everyone can succeed. In this report, we share our latest gender pay gap data and update stakeholders on the steps we’re taking to narrow the gap further. Monitoring and reporting the gap over...

UK. Pensions gender gaps exist across several industries, research finds

Women’s pension savings at retirement are less than half the size of men’s, according to a financial services provider’s analysis of its workplace pensions data. Legal & General analysed more than 4.5 million defined contribution (DC) workplace pension savers. When looking at thousands of people who retired last year, it found that women had typically built a pot of £12,000 at retirement, while men had £26,000 put away. The findings did not take into account any savings which may be placed elsewhere,...

US. ‘True Cost of Aging’ index shows many seniors can’t afford basic necessities

Each month, Seeley, a retired teacher, gets $925 from Social Security and a $287 disbursement from an individual retirement account. To make ends meet, she’s taken out a reverse mortgage on her Portland, Maine, home that yields $400 monthly. So far, Seeley has been able to live on this income—about $19,300 a year—by carefully monitoring her spending and drawing on limited savings. But should her excellent health worsen or she need assistance at home, Seeley doesn’t know how she’d pay...

June 2022

Spillover Effects of Old-Age Pension Across Generations: Family Labor Supply and Child Outcomes

By Katja Kaufmann, Yasemin Özdemir & Han Ye We study the impact of grandparental retirement decisions on family members' labor supply and child outcomes by exploiting a Dutch pension reform in a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity design. A one-hour increase in grandmothers' hours worked causes adult daughters with young children to work half an hour less. Daughters without children, with older children and sons/daughters-in-law are not affected. We show important long-run impacts on maternal labor supply and on the child penalty....