IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mcm/sedapp/177.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Retirement Saving in Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Garry Barrett
  • Yi-Ping Tseng

Abstract

Australia’s retirement income system has several distinctive features – most notably a policy of government mandated private saving and a means-tested Age Pension – which have gained increasing international attention. This paper provides an overview of the institutional features of the retirement income system in Australia, including details of the development and operation of the policy of forced retirement saving. The role of the different tiers of system in accounting for the income of the current cohort of seniors is examined using the Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Expenditure Survey. The economic position of adjacent, younger cohorts is also considered. The final section canvasses a selection of reform proposals emerging from the public debate over the future of Australia’s retirement income system.

Suggested Citation

  • Garry Barrett & Yi-Ping Tseng, 2007. "Retirement Saving in Australia," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 177, McMaster University.
    • Handle: RePEc:mcm:sedapp:177
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/sedap/p/sedap177.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bateman,Hazel & Kingston,Geoffrey & Piggott,John, 2001. "Forced Saving," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521481625, January.
      • Bateman,Hazel & Kingston,Geoffrey & Piggott,John, 2001. "Forced Saving," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521484718, January.
    2. Hazel Bateman & John Piggott, 1997. "Private Pensions in OECD Countries: Australia," OECD Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Papers 23, OECD Publishing.
    3. Productivity Commission, 2005. "Economic Implications of an Ageing Australia," Research Reports, Productivity Commission, Government of Australia, number 16.
    4. Orazio Attanasio & Susanne Rohwedder, 2001. "Pension wealth and household saving: evidence from pension reforms in the UK," IFS Working Papers W01/21, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    5. Feldstein, Martin S, 1974. "Social Security, Induced Retirement, and Aggregate Capital Accumulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(5), pages 905-926, Sept./Oct.
    6. Bateman, Hazel & Piggott, John, 2001. "Australia's mandatory retirement saving policy : a view from the new millennium," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 23160, The World Bank.
    7. Orazio P. Attanasio & Agar Brugiavini, 2003. "Social Security and Households' Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 118(3), pages 1075-1119.
    8. Ellis Connolly & Marion Kohler, 2004. "The Impact of Superannuation on Household Saving," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2004-01, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    9. Malcolm Edey & John Simon, 1996. "Australia's Retirement Income System: Implications for Saving and Capital Markets," NBER Working Papers 5799, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Productivity Commission, 2005. "Economic Implications of an Ageing Australia," Labor and Demography 0506001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Orazio P. Attanasio & Susann Rohwedder, 2003. "Pension Wealth and Household Saving: Evidence from Pension Reforms in the United Kingdom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1499-1521, December.
    12. Myles, John, 2000. "The Maturation of Canada's Retirement Income System: Income Levels, Income Inequality and Low Income Among the Elderly," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2000147e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Todd Morris, 2022. "Re-examining female labor supply responses to the 1994 Australian pension reform," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 419-445, June.
    2. Atalay, Kadir & Barrett, Garry F., 2016. "Pension Incentives and the Retirement Decisions of Couples," IZA Discussion Papers 10013, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Kadir Atalay & Garry F. Barrett & Peter Siminski, 2019. "Pension incentives and the joint retirement of couples: evidence from two natural experiments," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 735-767, July.
    4. Deborah A. Cobb‐Clark & Vincent A. Hildebrand, 2011. "Portfolio Allocation In The Face Of A Means‐Tested Public Pension," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 57(3), pages 536-560, September.
    5. Geoffrey Kingston & Susan Thorp, 2019. "Superannuation in Australia: A Survey of the Literature," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 95(308), pages 141-160, March.
    6. Zhu, Rong, 2016. "Retirement and its consequences for women's health in Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 117-125.
    7. Meliyanni Johar, 2017. "The Evolution of Out-of-Hospital Medical Costs to and through Retirement," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 36(1), pages 17-31, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jappelli, Tullio & Padula, Mario & Bottazzi, Renata, 2005. "Retirement Expectations, Pension Reforms and Their Effect on Private Wealth Accumulation," CEPR Discussion Papers 4882, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Conny Olovsson, 2014. "How Does a Pay-as-you-go System Affect Asset Returns and the Equity Premium?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(1), pages 131-149, January.
    3. Adeline Delavande & Susann Rohwedder, 2008. "Individuals’ Responses to Social Security Reform," Working Papers wp182, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    4. Blau, David M., 2011. "Pensions, Household Saving, and Welfare: A Dynamic Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 5554, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Talosaga Talosaga & Mark Vink, 2014. "The Effect of Public Pension Eligibility Age on Household Saving: Evidence from a New Zealand Natural Experiment," Treasury Working Paper Series 14/21, New Zealand Treasury.
    6. Bottazzi, Renata & Jappelli, Tullio & Padula, Mario, 2006. "Retirement expectations, pension reforms, and their impact on private wealth accumulation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(12), pages 2187-2212, December.
    7. Alessie, Rob & Angelini, Viola & van Santen, Peter, 2013. "Pension wealth and household savings in Europe: Evidence from SHARELIFE," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 308-328.
    8. José Luis Iparraguirre, 2020. "Economics and Ageing," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-29019-1, June.
    9. Marta Lachowska & Michał Myck, 2018. "The Effect of Public Pension Wealth on Saving and Expenditure," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 284-308, August.
    10. Lindeboom, Maarten & Montizaan, Raymond, 2020. "Disentangling retirement and savings responses," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    11. Andreas Thiemann, 2016. "How Does Maternal Pension Wealth Affect Family Old-Age Savings in Germany?," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1560, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Luigi Guiso & Tullio Jappelli & Mario Padula, 2009. "Pension Risk, Retirement Saving and Insurance," Economics Working Papers ECO2009/18, European University Institute.
    13. Peter van Santen, 2019. "Uncertain Pension Income and Household Saving," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(4), pages 908-929, December.
    14. Peter Siminski, 2009. "Do Government Benefits for High Income Retirees Encourage Saving?," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 12(3), pages 247-261.
    15. Whitehouse, Edward, 2001. "Pension systems in 15 countries compared: the value of entitlements," MPRA Paper 14751, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Anna d’Addio & Muriel Roger & Frédérique Savignac, 2019. "Pensions and Household Savings: Cross-Country Heterogeneity in Europe," Working papers 738, Banque de France.
    17. Renata Bottazzi & Tullio Jappelli & Mario Padula, 2009. "The Portfolio Effect of Pension Reforms," Working Papers 2009_17, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    18. Ximena Quintanilla, 2011. "The effect of the Chilean Pension Reform on Wealth Accumulation," Working Papers 47, Superintendencia de Pensiones, revised Sep 2011.
    19. Mathieu Lefebvre & Sergio Perelman, 2016. "Social security wealth and household asset holdings: new evidence from Belgium," Working Papers of BETA 2016-38, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    20. Madeira, Carlos, 2022. "The impact of the Chilean pension withdrawals during the Covid pandemic on the future savings rate," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    retirement income; social security; forced saving;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mcm:sedapp:177. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demcmca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.