June 2025

PAYG Pensions in a Post-Growth Economy: A Case Study Analysis

By Christine Corlet Walker, Dario Leoni & Tim Jackson Ecological economists have increasingly warned that continual reliance on economic growth poses existential threats to environmental sustainability. A post-growth economy would instead prioritise environmental and societal prosperity over economic accumulation. But this transition demands a careful scrutiny of ‘growth dependencies’. One area in which this reliance on growth is potentially profound – particularly in the light of aging populations – is pension systems. In this paper, we therefore begin to address...

May 2025

Annual survey on financial incentives for retirement savings. Country profiles 2024

By Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Countries provide financial incentives to encourage individuals to save for retirement in asset-backed pension plans. Financial incentives for retirement savings can take the form of tax incentives, which are indirect subsidies through the tax code, or non-tax incentives, which are direct government payments into pension accounts. This annual survey provides an overview of the tax treatment of retirement savings and covers non-tax incentives to promote retirement savings in OECD countries and four accession...

A Canadian Approach to Rethinking Technology Design for Aging Populations

By Milena Head Older adults are the fastest-growing segment of the population. In Canada, one in five people are 65 or older, and by 2065, this will increase to more than one in four. Yet, despite their growing numbers, older adults often face exclusion and marginalization in technology design. This digital divide has significant consequences, leading to isolation, loneliness, frustration, and poor health outcomes, particularly when we intersect factors like lower socioeconomic status, race, gender, and immigrant status. Source: @SSRN

Philippines. SSS Announces New Grants & Pensions for 2025

SSS Announces New Grants & Pensions: If you’re a Social Security System (SSS) member in the Philippines, 2025 brings some of the most comprehensive updates in recent years. The SSS has officially rolled out a host of new grants, expanded coverage, pension enhancements, and voluntary retirement savings programs, offering fresh opportunities for all member categories. Whether you’re a full-time employee, a self-employed professional, or a retiree, these changes are designed to enhance your financial security and retirement readiness. In a time of...

How Companies With Frozen, Overfunded Pensions Approach the Future

Corporate pension funding surpluses are higher than they have been in more than a decade. Large surpluses are leading corporate pension plan sponsors to take a risk-on approach to their portfolios and evaluate options for the future of their plans. “We’ve hit the record high funded ratio since the [liability-driven investing] era,” says Jeff Passmore, lead LDI strategist at MetLife Investment Management. “We hit 107.2% funded intra-quarter—that was February 17.” According to Milliman, in 2024, about 34 U.S. companies had frozen pension plans with surplus...

April 2025

UK. Mind the gap: younger DC members care about the planet, their pension funds should take note

Today, we manage pensions for members living very different lives, different ages, different time horizons, different priorities. Yet too often, we rarely ask them: "What do you want from your money?" Younger members are already telling us. Over 80% of under-40s in the UK care about climate change. They want their savings to deliver purpose, impact, and value not just financial return and they want to be able to retire into a liveable world, not have to adapt just to survive in...

Zimbabwe. Short-term insurers target informal sector

The Insurance Council of Zimbabwe (ICZ), an association of short-term insurers, says the industry is exploring new business lines through inclusive insurance and targeting the informal sector. Motor and fire insurance continue to dominate short-term insurance industry revenue in both local currency and US dollar terms. According to the Insurance and Pensions Commission (Ipec) third-quarter 2024 report, direct short-term insurers reported consolidated insurance revenue amounting to ZiG 2,53 billion and US$153,97 million in terms of foreign currency business. During the reporting period,...

Optimal Investment-Consumption and Retirement Choice with Labor and Pension Incomes

By Hyun Jin Jang & Seon Hwa Lee This study examines lifetime optimal investment, consumption, and retirement timing decisions under a heterogeneous consumption utility function and the presence of pension earnings. Using the duality method, we derive the optimal wealth, investment-consumption strategies, and voluntary retirement region. Through simulation analysis, we assess the impact of pensions on these decisions. Our findings highlight the critical role of pensions in retirement planning, alongside wages and labor costs. Notably, pension benefits encourage earlier voluntary...

UK. Understanding and Evaluating Retirement Income Solutions

With nearly 4.2 million Americans reaching age 65 this year—the most ever—retirement plan advisers and sponsors are no longer able to ignore or put off the need to provide retiree and near-retiree participants with options to begin drawing down the income they have spent decades saving. Last year, about 20% of 500 C-suite leaders surveyed by TIAA said that offering guaranteed income for life was the top way that employers could improve workers’ retirement. But plan sponsors have an additional...

Conversion in the Act on Future Pensions, sailing to safe harbour?

By Hans van Meerten & Adrienn Pásztor This article explores the transformation of rights and entitlements during the transition to a new Dutch pension system within the second pillar for occupational pension schemes. It provides an examination of various national legal challenges such as the contractual basis and retrospective nature of this conversion process, alongside relevant aspects of European law including property rights and effective legal protection under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Charter of Fundamental...