March 2025
28Mar

Parental Leave Policies, Fertility, and Labor Supply

By Daisoon Kim & Minchul Yum South Korea has been facing persistently low fertility rates and large gender gaps in labor supply. In response, the government has expanded parental leave benefits to address these challenges. To evaluate the effectiveness of these policies, we develop a quantitative, heterogeneous-household life-cycle model in which couples make joint decisions on careers, labor supply, savings, and child-related choices, including fertility, childcare, and parental leave take-up. The model is calibrated to recent Korean cohorts to replicate...

March 28, 2025
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28Mar

Future-Proofing the Longevity Economy: Innovations and Key Trends

By World Economic Forum The world is at a pivotal moment in its demographic transition, with more than one in four people now living in countries where the population has peaked. This shift, coupled with increasing life expectancy and declining birth rates, presents both urgent challenges and unprecedented opportunities. Building on the Longevity Economy Principles, this white paper synthesizes five key trends shaping the future of the longevity economy: building resilient public retirement systems; transitioning from savings accumulation to decumulation; enhancing the...

March 28, 2025
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07Mar

The Gender Pensions Gap

By Khadijah Zaidi & James Mirza-Davies The gender pensions gap refers to differences in retirement income or retirement wealth for men and women, and it can be measured in different ways. The gender pensions gap is mainly caused by the gender pay gap. There are however additional causal factors relating specifically to pensions, such as historic state pension rules, the impact of auto-enrolment rules on different types of workers, and how divorce settlements treat pensions. The Work and Pensions Committee...

March 7, 2025
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February 2025
26Feb

How should policy-makers think about longevity?

As people live longer, public policy and public spending should pivot towards ensuring longer, healthier and more active lives. This includes a shift towards preventative healthcare and lifelong education. Economists have been warning of ageing societies for decades. Globally, falling birth rates and rising life expectancy are leading to an increasing proportion of older people. In the UK in 1950, one in nine of the population was over 65 years old; today, it is around one in five. That share...

February 26, 2025
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17Feb

Living Beyond Age 100: A Possibility With Financial Impact

Living beyond age 100 might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but think about how many once-impossible ideas are now part of everyday life. Air travel, landing on the moon, mobile phones and even the ability to map our DNA were unthinkable not long ago. Now, breakthroughs in medicine and technology are nudging us closer to the possibility of living significantly longer, healthier lives. While immortality isn’t on the table just yet, the idea of living well beyond 100...

February 17, 2025
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January 2025
29Jan

Retirement is a risky business for most people

Firstlinks published an article by Bruce Bennett on 8 January 2025 that highlighted some of the problems with the Commonwealth Super Scheme (CSS): This article drew comparisons between account-based pensions available from industry super funds and SMSFs. I think those comparisons are misplaced. A more interesting exercise would be to compare the CSS with the age pension because both are income streams that are paid for life and indexed to inflation. In both cases, the provider is the Commonwealth Government and benefits are...

January 29, 2025
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24Jan

2024 BlackRock Read on Retirement

By BlackRock Retirement. It’s deeply personal. And yet, many of the challenges workers face are common and shared. The relationship someone new to the workforce has with retirement is likely very different than that of someone later in their career. Layer in factors like individual experience and a lack of access to the right tools, opportunities and guidance… and suddenly the path can get complex. But we’re rethinking retirement – because it doesn’t have to be. Get the report here.

January 24, 2025
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October 2024
30Oct

What Are the Top Retirement Planning Questions Among Boomers?

Not surprisingly, “how much money will I need to retire comfortably” and “is it possible I could outlive my savings” were the top responses among Baby Boomers who were asked to select their top three “burning questions,” but another important issue was also on their minds. And that is the issue of long-term care, according to the latest findings from Northwestern Mutual’s 2024 Planning and Progress Study. Perhaps because of their proximity in age to retirement, Boomers included long-term care concerns...

October 30, 2024
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25Oct

Is the US headed for a retirement crisis?

Is the United States speeding towards a retirement crisis or not? Well, Wayne Park, CEO of John Hancock Retirement, won't go that far, but definitely believes the “check engine light is on.” Park’s concern is based on the firm’s recently released financial resiliency and longevity report which showed half the respondents feeling like they're falling behind in retirement saving, while another 40 percent said their financial situation was fair or poor. Meanwhile, the survey said the average respondent thinks they're going to be working...

October 25, 2024
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