Age Security System Research Articles

Institutional Approach to Gender Bias in Old Age Security Systems: Comparative Analysis of Swedish and Polish Pension Reforms

:According to the functionalist approach, institutions exist for a reason. They appear spontaneously or are carefully designed in order to address particular problems. The very same institution may bring various effects in different social settings or when nested within distinct institutional structures. Similarly, historical paths of development may influence institutions in such a way that even though they address similar problems, their content is not alike which ultimately produces divergent results. Thus the question appears, to what extent a particular institution is an outcome of rational design, and/or an outcome of sociocultural heritage conflicting with it. Our intention is to illustrate the above concerns with a case study, which compares two efforts to reform an institutional structure resulting in diverse outcomes. In the article we address the issue of women and men within pension systems. We argue that these systems are institutional structures, which creation was influenced by both sociocultural heritage and rational design aimed at achieving specific results. This is especially apparent when focusing on gender related issues and the struggle to overcome differences between women and men with regard to old age income. We observe that these efforts are sometimes contraposed by sociocultural factors which downplay economic rationality.

Demographic and Socioeconomic Determinants of Women Begging in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, 2007

Background: Begging is a last resort of coping mechanisms of poverty, disability and various political, social and environmental crises. It is practiced to obtain from others. Objective: This study is attempted to investigate the demographic and socio-economic determinants of begging at Bahir Dar. Methods: case-control study design was used with a total population of 204 (102 cases[ beggars] and 102 controls[ non- beggars] ). Semi-structured questionnaire were used and entered in to SPSS for Windows version 15.0 for analysis. Result: reasons for beggar’s engagement in begging were, Poverty (98%) unemployment (78%) and physical handicap (54%) were identified. As to the background characteristics of respondents, the result of the binary logistic regression indicates that there was significant relation between begging and literacy status. The odds of begging decreases by 25% for literate respondents than their illiterate counterparts. In this study, beggaring was found increasing as age level increases. The logistic regression results also indicate that the odds of begging is 10.76 times higher for cases in the age group 25-34 years than younger cohorts (15-24 years). Annual household income also showed an association to be beggars between the groups. Conclusion and Recommendation: illiteracy, migration, old age and low annual household income were significantly associated with being beggar. Reducing rural urban migration and establishing an old age security system may solve the problem.

Die Auswirkungen bedarfsabhängiger Leistungen: Ergänzungsleistungen in der Schweiz

AbstractAs in many other countries, means tested benefits constitute an important part of the Swiss old age security system and disability insurance. In contrast to universal benefits, such targeted transfers are intended to only support the ones in need and thereby lead to low level of public expenses. However, individuals face strong incentives at various stages in life to adapt their behavior in order to become eligible. Using the Swiss Erg¨anzungsleistungen as an example, we argue that means tested benefits increase the incentive to apply for disability benefits, raise the attractiveness of early retirement, and induce individuals to favor a lump sum payment over an annuity. Moreover, they decrease the incentive to purchase private long-term care insurance.

Private Pensions and Corporate Governance

The article explores the influence of private pensions on Corporate Governance and puts the US and the UK as well as Germany and Japan. Due to old age security system relying on private pensions, the Corporate Governance systems of the US and the UK have been influenced to a significant degree by private pension instititutions. In Germany and Japan, private pension are less important but corporate governance principles promoted by international investors shape the Corporate Governance system in the respective countries as well.

Study on the Shanghai Old-age Social Security of Aging Time

With the advent of the aging time, old-age social security has a heavy burden. The current protection system consists of three aspects of old-age pension, health care and community services. There is still a big gap between the system and the need of the old society. Proposed the concept of old age service chain, and old age services of lifetime guarantee and after birth are incorporated into the system. The paper describes the experience of the United States and Taiwan area, and enlightenment for China to speed up the construction of old age security system.

China's Urban and Rural Old Age Security System: Challenges and Options

AbstractThis paper reviews the development of the urban and rural old age security system in China, and discusses the challenges in the process of constructing a sustained old age security system. Although funding gaps and empty individual accounts have imposed a heavy burden on the sustainability of China's urban pension system, there is a relatively high coverage rate of 35.3 percent for urban workers. However, China's pension system provides low coverage rate for rural farmers. The more rapidly aging population and lower incomes in rural areas pose challenges to the vulnerable rural household support system. The separation of the old age security system between rural and urban areas also puts great pressure as a result of urbanization on farmers who lose their farmland. Therefore, it is urgent for China to speed up the reform of its old age security system to provide an institutional support for its economic and social transition.(Edited by Zhinan Zhang)

Reforms of Pension System in Lithuania

Lithuania, like other Central European countries, undergoes a deep reform of the old age security system. The reform takes place in a controversial cognitive environment. The controversy is between methodological individualism and methodological holism as peculiar worldviews. The two world outlooks provide different reform perceptions and scenarios.

Pension Economics: The Relativity of Time and Risk

Human nature, it seems, is as much conditioned by traditions and almost axiomatic customs as by science and the systematic and logical analysis of a given situation. The heated debates on the best (or at least the most widely acceptable) old age provision systems are a case in point. It can only be described as odd that arguably the biggest achievement of modern societies during the 20 century, an enormous improvement in the mean life expectancy in nearly all countries, is often perceived as one of the fundamental ‘‘problems’’ that we currently have to solve, from an economic but also a social point of view. We routinely speak about the ‘‘ageing’’ of populations in a manner that is, if not outright negative, full of adverse and antipathetic connotations. Tabloid headlines range from ‘‘The Ageing Problem’’ to ‘‘Old Age Time Bomb’’. The fact that the wider public is being made aware of a complex set of issues that our old age security systems and our societies at large are and will be facing is certainly to be welcomed. However, we have to be concerned that:

Sex and Gender Discrimination Within Eu Pension Systems

Drawing on the philosophical differentiation between sex and gender, this article focuses on structural mechanisms of gender discrimination within European pension systems. For this purpose, the article distinguishes between two dimensions of the gender category: the work behaviour dimension and the care dimension. It is argued that the differentiation between employment and family work on the one hand and specific living arrangements on the other is structurally implemented within old age security systems. All countries have established earnings-related schemes which, to various extents, refer to former earnings and continuous working careers. Many of the earnings-related schemes incorporate family work in one way or another by granting entitlement for the care of children and/or elderly or handicapped people. Most of the schemes are combined with additional benefits for spouses and/or survivors, referring to married heterosexual couples. Only a few countries have additionally established universal pension schemes based on residence instead of employment or family work. The comparative analysis of pension systems in the 15 EU member states gives an idea about national varieties of structural gender differentiation.

The Pension Reform Process in France

The French old age security system was constructed progressively following the end of the Second World War in response to the pressing problem of old age poverty. In 1945 less than 40% of old people (4.5 million in total) had a pension. This was despite the existence of some pension systems dating back to the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. Monetary depreciation also meant that the pensions of those who enjoyed such benefits were very low. Historical factors explain the current pension system's organization and institutional division favouring pay-as-you-go schemes. While the French pension system has been largely successful in eliminating old age poverty, it today faces new challenges and constraints that make reform necessary. The debate as how best to reform the pension system is a long and winding one. Change is slow and incremental. Ideological, social and cultural factors and their interrelations help explain the difficulties in effecting reforms.

Pension systems in the European Union and aspects of socio-economic change

The European Union has different traditions concerning the main concept of social security in general, and of retirement and pension benefits. Different political decisions dictate the range of personal coverage, how benefits are calculated and how the systems are financed. Within this paper, the author will try to distinguish the different types of core systems and will present a rough grouping of twelve national systems. The systems that provide social protection in old age have entered a period of massive socioeconomic change. This includes changes in the structure of employment, and of family life. At the same time, most European countries have become countries of immigration. The author does not intend to make a detailed analysis of these changes themselves, but rather to select elements of them, and examine different types of old age security systems within these changes.

Conflict, Crisis, and the Future of Old Age Security

the rapid growth in old age security entitlements in all capitalist democracies was widely hailed as a necessary, indeed inevitable, consequence of industrialization and economic growth. Industrialization, it was thought, had simultaneously rendered the labor of older workers redundant (Graebner 1980) and provided the wealth to make it unnecessary (Wilensky 1975). A retirement wage sufficient to permit or induce withdrawal from the labor force in advance of physiological decline could, and should, be made available to all. In the mid-1970s, however, a contrary view began to take form. Rather than being natural or inevitable, it was argued that the combination of rising entitlements and an increasing number of retirees was part of a long-term process bound to self-destruct. In the long term, the old age security systems that were the pride of the postwar welfare state were doomed to collapse under the weight of changing demographic and fiscal realities. The of old age security had been discovered. In the usual formulation, the roots of the crisis are attributed to demography; the system of old age security entitlements currently in place in the capitalist democracies simply cannot withstand the rise

IMPACT OF TAX, TRANSFER, AND EXPENDITURE POLICIES OF GOVERNMENT ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL INCOME IN CANADA

This is a study of the first order incidence of government taxation and expenditure policies on the incomes of families and unattached individuals in Canada in 1970. The specific purposes of the study are twofold. The first is to estimate for calendar year 1970 the first order incidence of governments’actual tax, transfer, and expenditure policies on spending units. The second objective is to simulate the changes in this incidence that would have occurred in 1970 if the new federal personal income tax, unemployment insurance, old age sccurity and family allowance programs had been in operation during that year. The methodology is similar to that used by W. Irwin Gillespie in his pioneering 1964 study for the Royal Commission on Taxation.It is concluded that the 1970 incidence of the combined tax and transfer programs of all levels of government is broadly redistributive, with net incidence of federal government programs being considerably more redistributive than that of provincial and local governments. In general, the public sector provides large net benefits to families and individuals with incomes of less than $4,000, declining net benefits to families earning from $4,000 to $11,000 and levies small but increasing levels of net tax on families and individuals with incomes in excess of $11,000. This general conclusion is relatively insensitive to the precise assumptions made about the shifting of taxes and the distribution of expenditures on pure public goods. From simulation experiments, recent reforms of the federal income tax, unemployment insurance, old age security and family allowance systems were estimated to increase the amount of redistribution from the rich to the poor.