A pension system is at the heart of social protection. By ensuring income security for older persons and other vulnerable groups, it prevents poverty, reduces inequality, and facilitates consumption smoothing. A pension system also affects the working population's labor market choices and has...

This Selected Issues paper examines the long-term issues with pension expenditures in the Netherlands. The paper highlights that the public pension for a single person is equal to 70 percent of the (statutory) minimum wage. The minimum wage and public pensions thus move in lock-step; they are...

This Selected Issues paper highlights that the authorities in the Republic of Korea recognize the pension policy challenges ahead, and a first wave of reforms has already been launched. Despite the reforms to date, much remains to be done. Without further reforms, the public pension systems in...

While Thailand's pension system is typically described as a multipillar pension scheme, its design is highly fragmented and offers adequate coverage only to a small segment of the population, including civil servants and high-income individuals. In its 2018 Article IV report, the IMF highlighted...

This paper reviews past trends in public pension spending and provides projections for 27 advanced and 25 emerging economies over 2011-2050. In constructing these projections, the paper incorporates the impact of recent pension reforms and highlights the key assumptions underlying these...

In the next 30-40 years, past changes in fertility and mortality will lead to a significant increase in the share of the elderly. This study suggests that these demographic trends may lead to a decline in the G-7 private savings rate after 2000, compounding the impact of social expenditure...

This paper considers the implications of the prospective aging of the U.S. population for the social security system and concludes that the large and growing cashflow surpluses of the social security trust funds should be saved to help insulate living stands against this change. A number of...

Concerns about restructuring old-age income provisions and reforming public pension schemes are an OECD-wide phenomenon. This paper highlights first the background of the reform debate. Despite the divergences in the structure of public pension schemes, the main pressures for reform are...

This paper presents a technical note on Mexico’s Financial Sector Assessment Program update. The Mexican experience displays interesting characteristics that provide lessons for other countries that still need to design the decumulation phase of their newly established second pillars. The...

This paper presents a Joint Staff Advisory Note on the Republic of Armenia’s Second Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). Armenia’s poverty and extreme poverty rates declined in 2006 to 26.5 percent and 4.1 percent of the population, respectively—results which surpassed...