Le bien-être économique des personnes âgées au Québec

Abstract

This article is based on most of the findings presented in a study of the Régie des rentes du Québec on the evaluation of the Quebec system of financial security in retirement as compared with that of other industrialized countries. However, it should be mentioned that the portrait presented in that study dates from the mid-1990s, which means that it does not reflect the effects of recent reforms undertaken in some countries, nor does it necessarily reflect the current situation regarding the economic well-being of older persons. The following facts nevertheless emerge: -despite the diversity of income security systems for retirement, the living standard of older persons was, in the mid-1990s, more or less equivalent to that of persons of working age; -the Canadian income security system for retirement is more oriented towards reducing the poverty of older persons, by the increase in income for the poorest, than towards reducing income inequalities. -in a comparison of the countries under study, the OECD considers that Canada, and, indirectly, Quebec, was, in the mid-1990s, the country which had the least difficultymaintaining the economic wellbeing of the retired and protecting the most vulnerable categories.