OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers
This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected labour market, social policy and migration studies prepared for use within the OECD. Authorship is usually collective, but principal writers are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language - English or French - with a summary in the other.
- ISSN: 1815199X (online)
- https://doi.org/10.1787/1815199X
Life-Expectancy Risk and Pensions
Who Bears the Burden?
Two-thirds of pension reforms in OECD countries in the last 15 years contain measures that will
automatically link future pensions to changes in life expectancy. This quiet revolution in pension policy
means that the financial costs of longer lives will be shared between generations subject to a rule, rather
than spreading the burden through potentially divisive political battles as happened in the past.
As a result, nearly half of OECD countries - 13 out of 30 - now have an automatic link between
pensions and life expectancy in their retirement-income systems, compared with only one country
(Denmark) a decade ago. Indeed, the spread of this policy has a strong claim as the major innovation in
pension policy in recent years. The link to life expectancy has been achieved in four different ways...
JEL:
J11: Labor and Demographic Economics / Demographic Economics / Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts;
J14: Labor and Demographic Economics / Demographic Economics / Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination;
D81: Microeconomics / Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty / Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty;
H55: Public Economics / National Government Expenditures and Related Policies / Social Security and Public Pensions