Faces of Ageing and Fundamental Background of Pension Investments - In East Central Europe, Russia and Scandinavia

Abstract

During the transition in East Central Europe, a number of criteria and schools of thought clashed over the creation of a market economy and the role of the state. The long-term demographic vulnerability of the region is also coupled with a crisis in the labor market tied to the transition. To deal with these problems, a series of pension reforms has attempted to improve the country's demographic situation since the mid-1990s in addition to reducing the financial role of the state. Placing self-provision in the foreground, the state only assumes financial risk for the first pillar, thus, in making a regional comparison of pension systems, the economic background and the status of the country's external equilibrium must be taken into account. This study compares potential Slovenian, Czech, Hungarian and Russian pension portfolios with Swedish, Danish and Finnish data - bearing in mind differences in the real economy.