January 2026

Ghana. President Mahama pledges to review Single Spine Salary Structure and pensions

President John Dramani Mahama has pledged to carry out a review of the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) and pensions, as part of government efforts to address concerns of public sector workers. The President made the promise in his address at the opening of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) 54th National Delegates Congress and Seventh Quadrennial Conference in Accra, on the theme, “Education and Development: The Ghana Education Service (GES) at 50: Reflecting, Reviewing, Revising, and Growing the Profession and...

2026 marks beginning of ‘decade of pensions transformation’

UK pension schemes enter 2026 in a robust position with strong funding levels, but the year ahead is expected to mark the start of significant structural change for the system, Penfold has stated. The digital pensions provider noted that defined benefit (DB) pension schemes were collectively running an estimated £223bn surplus, with assets exceeding long-term liabilities by around 24-25 per cent. Meanwhile, defined contribution (DC) assets under management have continued to grow, reaching around £650bn - an increase of roughly 40...

December 2025

Comparing Socialist Approaches: Economics and Social Security in Cuba, China, and Vietnam

By Carmelo Mesa-Lago In Comparing Socialist Approaches, Carmelo Mesa-Lago examines the two main socialist models across Cuba, China, and Vietnam to compare central planning and socialist markets. Under the Cuban central plan, large state enterprises have been unable to generate economic growth, even with mild structural market reforms and a small controlled private sector. In the Sino-Vietnamese model of a socialist marketplace, dynamic private enterprises of all sizes, together with large state enterprises, operate under a decentralized plan with state regulation and...

Social Security Reforms and Inequality among Older Workers in Spain

By Cristina Bellés-Obrero, Manuel Flores, Pilar Garcia-Gomez, Sergi Jimenez-Martin & Judit Vall Castelló This chapter studies social security reforms and trends in inequalities among older workers over the last decades in Spain. Its main goal is to analyze the redistributive impact of the various pension reforms on older income inequality. Compared to the rules in 1985, recent pension reforms have led to an average increase on Social Security Wealth of approximately 18,000€ for men and 15,000€ for women. This represents...

Germany. Bundestag Passes Second Act Strengthening Company Pensions

The aim of the BRSG II is the necessary expansion of company pension schemes in Germany and it contains important new regulations. The Act will come into force in several stages from 1 January 2026. The most important points are summarised here. Following lengthy deliberations, which were also delayed by the new Bundestag elections, the Bundestag passed the BRSG II on 5 December. In particular, the Act includes options for introducing opting-out systems at company level, higher settlement caps for...

French MPs adopt social security budget, suspend pension reform

French lawmakers on Tuesday, December 16, adopted a social security budget, which includes the suspension of an unpopular pension reform, as Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu races to finalize a 2026 spending plan by year-end. The Assemblée Nationale approved the measure by 247 votes to 232, the first of two budget bills needed to pass before the December 31 deadline. The version of the bill lawmakers approved includes the suspension of a 2023 reform to raise the retirement age from 62...

Brazil’s Supreme Court (STF) has scheduled for December 18th the trial that could increase benefits in 2026.

The Supreme Federal Court set a date for December 18, 2025 the trial that could directly affect minimum age for special retirement, with significant implications for workers exposed to harmful conditions and for those who have already reorganized their lives after retirement. Beyond the minimum age for special retirementThe agenda involves the possibility of resuming full retirement benefits and allowing the conversion of special time into common time, forming a set of decisions that, if they move forward, could alter retirement planning, values, and...

Côte d’Ivoire Insurers Push for Pension Reform as Life-Insurance Penetration Stalls at 0.6%

Côte d’Ivoire’s Association of Insurance Companies (ASA-CI) has called for a mandatory supplementary pension plan for private-sector workers. The proposal was presented at the country’s first life-insurance conference, held in Abidjan on Dec. 3-4. Under the proposed scheme, private-sector employees would make additional contributions to boost their future retirement income, as the basic pension often fails to cover living costs, according to the ASA-CI. To support the new plan, the ASA-CI urged the government to develop tailored retirement savings and investment...

Germany. Merz hopes to avoid German coalition crisis with vow to overhaul pensions

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday his coalition has agreed to carry out a comprehensive pension reform next year, a move aimed at easing concerns over an interim pensions bill that had threatened to destabilise his government. The youth wing of Merz's conservatives had said they would not back the new bill, which aims to maintain current pension levels in relation to incomes while incentivizing people to work longer, as it would leave younger Germans to bear the costs. Their...

The evol­u­tion of pen­sion reforms in India

India’s rap­idly age­ing pop­u­la­tion is emer­ging as a pivotal pen­sion chal­lenge. Today, over 153 mil­lion Indi­ans are aged over 60. This is pro­jec­ted to double to 347 mil­lion by 2050. While a small sec­tion of older Indi­ans has benefited from the rise of formal sec­tor retire­ment, more than 88% of today’s senior cit­izens con­tinue to work, in the sprawl­ing informal eco­nomy, without access to pen­sions or reli­able social secur­ity rather than retir­ing (Chart 1). We revisit the evol­u­tion of...