Pensions Panorama : Retirement-Income Systems in 53 Countries

Pensions panorama provides a compendium of facts and analysis that should inform policy making and public debate about retirement-income systems around the world. The section following the introduction sets out a typology: a way of defining and classifying different kinds of pension schemes. It shows which countries have which types of pension schemes, covering all elements of the retirement-income system, including resource-tested benefits and basic pensions as well as public, earnings-related, and compulsory private pension plans. Next, the study sets out the institutional detail: the parameters and rules of different parts of the retirement-income system. The next section presents the core, empirical results: future pension entitlements of today's workers with different levels of earnings from all sources. This section includes the familiar replacement rate indicator: individual pension entitlements as a proportion of individual earnings when working. The following section explores the important role that personal income taxes and social security contributions play in determining the relative incomes of older people. In particular, it shows net replacement rates (that is, pension net of taxes and any contributions, relative to earnings, net of taxes and contributions). The third section on empirical results looks at the link between pension entitlements in retirement and earnings in work. This analysis highlights the key differences in philosophy between different countries' retirement-income systems. Moreover, changes to the pensions-earnings link have been central to many recent reforms to retirement-income regimes. The concluding section sets out a number of dimensions in which the pension systems of 53 countries differ.