By all measures the private pension system in Canada is in difficulty. One estimate suggests that at the end of 2005 there were significant funding shortfalls in about three quarters of the traditional defined benefit pension plans that fall under federal jurisdiction in Canada. In order to...

Pension benefit guarantee policies have been introduced in several countries to pro- tect private pension plan members from the loss of income that would occur if a plan was underfunded when the sponsoring firm terminates a plan. Most of these public insurance schemes face financial dificulty...

Pension benefit guarantee policies have been introduced in several countries to protect private pension plan members from the loss of income that would occur if a plan was underfunded when the sponsoring firm terminates a plan. Most of these public insurance schemes face financial difficulty and...

The paper reviews evidence that suggests that, over the coming two decades, people are likely to stay in the work force at least five years longer, possibly by considerably more. The implications for policy are surprisingly large and surprisingly unrecognized. Recent trends, if extended into the...

Canadians are living longer and retiring younger. When combined with the aging of the baby boom generation, that means that the “inactive” portion of the population is increasing and there are concerns about possibly large increases in the burden of support on those who are younger. We model...

Canadians are living longer and retiring younger. When combined with the aging of the baby boom generation, that means that the “inactive” portion of the population is increasing and there are concerns about possibly large increases in the burden of support on those who are younger. We model...

The purpose of this paper is to examine what key reform attempts during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies reveal about the wider possibilities for social policy change in the United States. Most particularly, why were Presidents Clinton and Bush able to achieve their goals in some...

Faced with aging populations and especially heightened fiscal constraints, large scale pension reforms were implemented in many affluent democracies during the 1990s. Canadian reforms, by contrast, were quite modest and old age security benefits emerged largely unscathed. Drawing on the...

This paper examines income inequality over stages of the later-life course (age 45 and older) and systems that can be used to mitigate this inequality. Two hypotheses are tested: (i) Levels of income inequality decline during old age because public benefits are more equally distributed than work...

Within the 65+ age group, the percentage of labour market income received by the top 1% of earners has increased from about 30% in 1982 to more than 60% in 2002. The trend is smooth, is roughly uniform across provinces and does not appear to have been accelerated by top marginal tax rate...