Increasing longevity and social security reforms—A legislative procedure approach

Abstract

Increasing longevity causes an upward trend in the dependency ratio in many countries. This raises concerns about the financial sustainability of social security schemes, and reform proposals and initiatives abound. It is shown that a fundamental policy choice inevitably arises since a given social security system cannot be maintained by simply indexing pension ages to longevity. The political reform process is analysed using the so-called legislative procedure. When longevity increases, the retirement age is raised more than proportionally to the increase in longevity, but the young also make larger transfers to the old.