Establishing robust, equitable, and effective social protection is essential to reducing poverty and boosting prosperity at all levels of development. The demographic transition that has already transformed most high-income societies will exert similar and growing pressures on others,...

The book has four specific objectives: (a) to discuss the role of retirement income transfers in the context of a strategy for expanding old- age income security and preventing poverty among the elderly; (b) to take stock of international experience with the design and implementation of these...

There has been a growing concern about “Bad Start, Bad Finish (BS/BF)” issues in European countries for the last decade. Many young persons make a bad start to their working career and remain as atypical workers for long periods, being anticipated to reach retirement age with inadequate...

There arose a serious pension record-keeping problem in Japan from May 2007. Around 50 million pension records of social security were found to be floating, not being integrated to the unified pension numbers. The pending records are due to human errors made by enrollees, their employers and...

In 1988, the total fertility rate (TFR, the number of children per family) of Japan was 1.38, recording a historic low. To date, there is little sign of any stop to this fertility decline. If the low birthrate continues, in a few years the total population of Japan will peak at around 128...