October 2026

Hong Kong ranks second in Asian pension systems, behind Singapore, as ageing tests retirement

Hong Kong’s retirement system remains one of Asia’s stronger performers this year, ranking second and trailing only Singapore. The two remain clear regional leaders, ahead of Malaysia, mainland China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, according to a report. The city retained its B grade, with its score edging up from 70.6 to 71.2, ranking 16th globally out of 55 systems, according to the annual Marsh CFA Institute Global Pension report by Marsh, a New York-based global professional services firm, and...

Aging populations are straining retirement systems worldwide

Today, Marsh (NYSE: MRSH), a leading global professional services firm, and CFA Institute, the global association of investment professionals, today released the 18th annual Marsh CFA Institute Global Pension Index (MCGPI), comparing 55 retirement income systems across the globe, covering 66% of the world’s population. As fertility rates fall and life expectancies rise, the world’s retirement income systems face mounting pressure. This year’s Index examines how aging populations will impact the design and long-term sustainability of pension systems worldwide –...

Can Voluntary Health Insurance Ease the Burden on Public Healthcare? Theory and Evidence from Europe

By Clara Andresciani, Debora Di Gioacchino & Laura Sabani This paper revisits the “decongestion effect” argument, according to which greater reliance on privately financed healthcare relieves pressure on public services. We develop a probabilistic voting model in which individuals, who differ in income, may purchase tax-deductible private health insurance, thereby gaining access to private care and reducing their demand for public healthcare. The model predicts that, as more individuals opt for private care, both political support and fiscal resources for...

UK’s Nest pension picks Wellington in £3.5 billion emerging market active equity shift

Britain's largest workplace pension scheme Nest has moved its entire £3.5 billion ($4.6 billion) in emerging ​market equities to US active manager Wellington Management, ending a focus on index investing to better manage sustainability risks, ‌an executive told Reuters. Nest, the £68 billion scheme into which more than 14 million workers are automatically enrolled, had invested the money passively for more than a decade, echoing a global market trend in which trillions of dollars have followed suit to save on...

September 2026

Spain. Fedea detects advances in the sustainability of pensions but warns of “excessively optimistic” projections

The Foundation for Applied Economic Studies (Fedea) has presented a paper in which it appreciates an improvement in the structural sustainability of the public pension system in Spain after the reforms of 2021 and 2023, focused on strengthening revenues and delaying the effective retirement age. However, the document insists that these conclusions should be taken "with great caution," as they depend on a series of macroeconomic and demographic hypotheses that Fedea itself considers "excessively optimistic." The hypotheses and assumptions labeled as...

Pensions 2050: Evidence and future priorities

By Jack Jones The second Pension Commission’s interim report provides a clear and urgent call to action. It describes a system in which, although participation rates in workplace pensions have doubled due to auto-enrolment, up to 19 million working age people are not on track to meet the retirement income targets set by the first Pension Commission. The triple locked flat-rate State Pension provides a firm foundation on which retirement incomes are built, and auto-enrolment has more than doubled the numbers...

July 2026

Pensions at a Glance Asia/Pacific 2024

By OECD This study presents a range of indicators to enable comparisons between the pension systems of economies in the Asia/Pacific region. It also includes data for the larger countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development (OECD). The report was drafted by Andrew Reilly of the Social Policy Division of the OECD Secretariat. Lucy Hulett prepared the manuscript for publication. For this sixth report we are again indebted to the national experts who contributed to...

June 2026

Zambia. Pensions Authority urges strong gov­ernance in pen­sion sec­tor

PENSIONS and Insur­ance Author­ity (PIA) regis­trar and chief exec­ut­ive officer Namakau Ntini says strong gov­ernance is the found­a­tion of sus­tain­able pen­sion sys­tems as it pro­motes account­ab­il­ity, trans­par­ency and prudent man­age­ment of retire­ment sav­ings. Mrs Ntini said the pen­sion industry is oper­at­ing in an increas­ingly com­plex envir­on­ment char­ac­ter­ised by eco­nomic uncer­tainty, chan­ging demo­graph­ics, tech­no­lo­gical dis­rup­tion, cli­mate-related risks and evolving mem­ber expect­a­tions. She said strong gov­ernance remains the found­a­tion upon which sus­tain­able pen­sion sys­tems are built, as it pro­motes account­ab­il­ity, prudent decision-mak­ing, trans­par­ency,...

April 2026

Pension funds urged to account for climate risk in private assets

Ortec Finance has urged global pension funds to gauge the physical climate-related risks associated with holding private assets, which are typically less liquid and held for much longer than equities or bonds. "Investments made now into infrastructure or real estate typically have a 15-year plus time horizon, so these are highly likely to be affected by rising physical climate risks," Ortec Finance managing director for climate scenarios and sustainability Maurits van Joolingen said. Ortec Finance estimates private infrastructure assets in the...

2024 Sustainability Investment Report

By Government Pension Investment Fund  The Government Pension Investment Fund, Japan (GPIF) has published the "2024 Sustainability Investment Report" as a way of reporting on GPIF's sustainability-related initiative, including Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), and the effects thereof to all pension beneficiaries and other stakeholders. In the "2024 Sustainability Investment Report," in addition to presenting the initiatives on sustainability investment undertaken during the year and the ESG evaluation of the portfolio, we also conducted the "Analysis of the Exercise of...