Abstract

Ageing in the Netherlands: demographic and financial arguments to balance the debate Ageing in the Netherlands: demographic and financial arguments to balance the debate The Dutch debate on ageing ignores that on a cohort basis it is a very limited problem as is, therefore, the financing of occupational pensions. Data taken from the Income Panel Survey show that the financing of the basic state pension AOW over the coming decades is not a major problem that cannot be solved by the increasing labour participation that may plausibly be expected. Because of a strong focus on public finance Dutch policymaking tends to overlook important inequalities in the ageing process as well as the important cost disadvantage of private pension funding compared with collective schemes – two aspects which, by contrast, are central to the UK pension debate. One important inequality concerns (healthy) life expectancy of the low educated; it should be accounted for when discussing a (shift of the) uniform pension age. Future poverty of retired women because of low lifetime earnings from part-time labour is another problem that should be discussed and prevented. Finally, the fact that average Dutch life expectancy lags behind internationally deserves more attention.

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