Old-age Pension Research Articles

Quality of life of post-stroke patients

IntroductionStroke is a disease whose consequences have a considerable impact on the quality of the patient’s life. It is a widespread disease that has a disabling impact on life and, in addition to physical changes, brings about a number of psychological and cognitive processes.GoalThe goal of the study was to identify and describe the quality of life of post-stroke patients.MethodologyThe study design was quantitative. A questionnaire of the authors’ own design and the SF-36 questionnaire were used to obtain the data.ResultsSignificant differences in patient quality of life were identified in relation to patient gender. Moreover, the quality of life in all individual SF-36 dimensions, except for mental health, deteriorated with age. With regard to occupational placement, employed respondents gave the highest evaluation of quality of life according to SF-36 and old-age pensioners the lowest. The analysis shows that quality of life in individual dimensions is positively influenced by respondents’ higher education. The evaluation in individual dimensions improves with the time that has passed since the stroke.ConclusionThe quality of life of post-stroke patients deteriorates with age. The deteriorating level of patient quality of life in older age requires programmes that include assessments and interventions that lead to the treatment of these patients.

Territory of residence as a factor of pension well-being in Russia

The increase in life expectancy, both in the world and in Russia, has led to an increase in the burden on the state budget as a whole and on pension systems, in particular. Since for most pensioners the state social system, in general, and the pension one, in particular, is the main source of well-being, this can provoke its decline.As follows from the study, along with demography (an increase in the number of pensioners compared to the population of working age) and the economy (phase of the cycle), the territory of residence is also a factor affecting pension welfare.The study is limited in scope: only material well-being, only old-age pensions, 8 federal districts of the Russian Federation, for the period of 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020.The Global Pension Index, the World Social Protection Report, other international documents, as well as the Comprehensive Monitoring of the Living Conditions of the Population has provided key indicators to assess pension well-being, including: 2 «monetary» (the ratio of the intended pension and the subsistence minimum) and 7 «non-monetary» ones that assess the state of housing conditions (general: the proportion of households of pensioners who are not constrained by housing; the size of the total area per member of the household; households estimate pensioners in the state of the living quarters occupied by them as «satisfactory» and the level of security of the living quarters of pensioners: centralized water supply, hot water supply, network gas and central heating).Evaluation of the mini / max method of these indicators empirically proves the hypothesis that the level of well-being of pensioners living in various federal districts of Russia is significantly different. Thus, it is empirically proven that the territory of residence is a factor of pension well-being, which requires the abandonment of regional ties in calculating the state pension.The article substantiates the recommendations to improving the publication process in economic journals and reducing transaction costs for authors of scientific publications.

Organization Development and Performance: The Impact of Employee Benefit Programs on Employee Work Behavior

Employee Work Behaviour (EWB) is a critical aspect of organizational culture that has a substantial impact on productivity and performance. Employees are expected to behave positively at work in order to build and maintain a healthy corporate culture. Employee benefit programs are implemented by companies to increase employee commitment and performance. Employee Commitment (EC) is another important cultural attribute of a high-performing workplace. The impact of the Employee Old-Age Benefit Institute (EOBI) (Old Age Pension) on EWB was investigated, as well as the involvement of EC as a mediating factor. A quantitative research approach was used to assess the impact of EOBI (Old-Age Pension) on EWB. All EOBI-registered business units in Lahore, Pakistan, make up the population. The list of business units was provided by the EOBI office in Lahore, Pakistan. We chose a sample of 145 units from a sampling frame of five hundred using a basic random sampling approach. The study's findings demonstrate a positive and substantial relationship between EOBI (Old Age Pension) and EWB, as well as a positive and significant relationship between EC and EWB. The EC partially mediates the relationship between EOBI (Old Age Pension) and EWB. employee benefit programmes are suggested as a way to improve job performance and dedication, according to the study's findings.

A Significance of Human Rights

The present day human rights advocacy can be justified on grounds of ‘positive view of freedom’. This entails ‘the view that individual freedom in the full sense involves having an opportunity for self- realization... The political content of the positive view is that, if certain resources, powers or abilities are needed for self-realization to be effectively achievable, then having these resources must be considered part of freedom itself. It is on this basis that modem revisionary liberals have defended the welfare state as a freedom- enhancing institution: it is alleged to confer needed resources on individuals and thereby to expand their chances of freedom’.( Gray.l986:pp.57,58). The view of Bentham on natural rights and the statement of Maurice Cranston on human rights sets in motion the contemporary debate on human rights. On natural rights Bentham opined that “Right is the child of law; from real laws come real rights, but from imaginary law, from “laws of nature”, come imaginary rights...Natural rights is simple nonsense,, natural and imprescriptibly rights...rhetorical nonsense, nonsense upon stilts’.(Quoted in Cranston, Maurice 1967:p.44). According to Maurice Cranston, “The traditional human rights are political and civil rights such as the right to life, liberty and a fair trial. What are now being put forward as universal human rights human rights are social and economic rights such as the right to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, medical services and holidays with pay. I have both a philosophical and political objection to this. The philosophical objection is that the new theory of human rights does not make sense. The Political objection is that the circulation of a confused notion of human rights hinders the effective protection of what are correctly seen as human rights.(Ibid.p.43). The views expressed by Cranston appealed to me as relevant on perusal of the Vienna declaration and Programme of action adopted by the World Conference on Human rights in Vienna on 25 June 1993.

The four global worlds of welfare capitalism: Institutional, neoliberal, populist and residual welfare state regimes

What welfare state regimes are observed when the analysis is extended globally, empirically and theoretically? We introduce a novel perspective into the ‘welfare state regimes analyses’ – a perspective that brings developed and developing countries together and, as such, broadens the geographical, empirical and theoretical scope of the ‘welfare modelling business’. The expanding welfare regimes literature has suffered from several drawbacks: (i) it is radically slanted towards organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD) countries, (ii) the literature on non-OECD countries does not use genuine welfare policy variables and (iii) social assistance and healthcare programmes are not utilized as components of welfare state effort and generosity. To overcome these limitations, we employ advanced data reduction methods, exploit an original dataset ( https://glow.ku.edu.tr/ ) that we assembled from several international and domestic sources covering 52 emerging markets and OECD countries and present a welfare state regime structure as of the mid-2010s. Our analysis is based on genuine welfare policy variables that are theorized to capture welfare generosity and welfare efforts across five major policy domains: old-age pensions, sickness cash benefits, unemployment insurance, social assistance and healthcare. The sample of OECD countries and emerging market economies form four distinct welfare state regime clusters: institutional, neoliberal, populist and residual. We unveil the composition and performance of welfare state components in each welfare state regime family and develop politics-based working hypotheses about the formation of these regimes. Institutional welfare state regimes perform high in social security, healthcare and social assistance, while populist regimes perform moderately in social assistance and healthcare and moderate-to-high in social security. The neoliberal regime performs moderately in social assistance and healthcare, and it performs low in social security, and the residual regime performs low in all components. We then hypothesize that the relative political strengths of formal and informal working classes are key factors that shaped these welfare state regime typologies.

Individual Pension Products Offered by Banks in Poland - a Multidimensional Comparative Analysis

Abstract The supplementary old-age pension system in Poland consists of group and individual plans. This research covers the latter, namely the individual retirement accounts and individual retirement security accounts that were introduced in 2004 and 2012 respectively. The main aim of the paper is to conduct a multidimensional comparative analysis of bank retirement products including the linguistic complexity of documents creating the retirement contracts offered to individuals by banks, and the costliness and profitability of such products in the period 2012-2019. Moreover, it identifies the dependencies between the linguistic and economic traits of retirement contracts offered by banks. The correlation analysis conducted using the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient showed that the more readable a document of a bank contract is, the higher the interest rate is and the higher the cancellation fees. The results of the study are relevant for both financial institutions and public bodies as they show the key characteristics that may influence the demand for individual retirement products in Poland and may serve as either a stimulator or a barrier in the development of supplementary old-age pension provision.

Spillover Effects of Old-Age Pension Across Generations: Family Labor Supply and Child Outcomes

Spillover Effects of Old-Age Pension Across Generations: Family Labor Supply and Child Outcomes

Do the COVID-19 Crisis, Ageing and Climate Change Put Swiss Fiscal Sustainability at Risk?

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic crisis as well as demographic and climate change pose major challenges for public finances. This article deals with the implications of demographic trends in Switzerland, i.e. the progressive ageing of the population and its impact on the country’s public finances in the long run. As the analysis shows, the brunt of the demographic burden is borne by the old-age pension scheme, health and long-term care. This article also addresses the financial ramifications of the COVID-19 crisis and shows the need for economic policy action over the longer term to ensure the sustainability of public finances in Switzerland. Furthermore, a qualitative assessment of climate change is included, as it constitutes an additional major long-term challenge for public finances.

Spillover Effects of Old-Age Pension Across Generations: Family Labor Supply and Child Outcomes

Spillover Effects of Old-Age Pension Across Generations: Family Labor Supply and Child Outcomes

Correlation between income changes in the elderly receiving the basic old-age pension and suicide rates

As of 2018, the highest suicide rates in Korea occur in the elderly, defined as aged 65 or older. There are several factors that influence the suicide rate in the elderly population, but one is economic poverty. The elderly poverty rate is defined as the percentage of elderly people with median or lower incomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the correlation between the basic pension paid to the elderly in Korea and suicide attempts. This study retrospectively reviewed data registered in the Emergency Department-Based Injury In-Depth Surveillance Database in South Korea from 2011 to 2017. In this study, people aged 60 to 64 years formed the control group, and those aged 65 to 69 years formed the treatment group. Difference-in-Differences (DID) was used for analysis. This study confirmed that the rate of suicide attempts among the elderly decreased by about 0.07% when they received the basic pension. The ratio of the number of suicidal patients (self-reported) to the total number of patients aged 60 to 69 was 0.62%; this ratio was reduced by about 10% among 60- to 69-year-olds receiving the basic pension. The same ratio pattern was found by a sensitivity analysis between groups with different age differences. This is the first study to investigate the correlation between the basic pension and suicide ideation in the elderly population of Korea. This study provides valuable insights, which will contribute to finding ways to prevent elder suicides in Korea through social approaches.

Where is Bie-Modern Going? Responding to Professors who study Bie-modern Theories

“Bie-modern” is a theory about social form. It refers to “doubtful modernity” or pseudo modernity, manifested in the hybridity of the modern, pre-modern and post-modern. At present, Bie-modern theory is applied in philosophy, aesthetics, literature, linguistics, art, design, psychology, tourism, law, economics, and Human-Computer Interaction. Bie-modernism is to seek the direction of future development in the mixed society and to reduce human misjudgments and errors on the way forward. Therefore, it is the priority of Bie-modernism to distinguish between truth and falsehood. Where is Bie-modern going? Firstly, we shall leave the ambiguity of the word “Bie”, to distinguish the difference between Bie-modernism and “plural modernity”, to distinguish true and false modernity, to distinguish the difference between Bie-modernism and modernism and post-modernism. Secondly, towards authenticity, to seek the truth and reality and implement the real modernity. Thirdly, we will be implementing life equity/life stocks, an inherent right to life of every individual, and the share that the right to life holds in the total wealth of society that cannot be deprived, transferred for the whole of their life, that means the right to enjoy free medical care, free education, free old-age pension, and the right to food, clothing, housing, and transportation. To realize human life equity/life stocks, the historical mission of society lies in eliminating the proletariat rather than the bourgeoisie. Life equity/life stocks is a primitive and real right, which is not influenced by acquired ideas and has the most irreplaceable dignity and value of life. Life equity/life stocks are closely related to human well-being and aesthetic feeling, and it has become the source of both. Lastly, we will be upholding “Bie”, the distinguishing, to the end through entering the ideological market and keeping authenticity, implementing life equity/life stocks, and the Great-leap-forward Pause of Bie-modernism. At present, Bie-modernism has rippled in the United States and the European Union. In the future, we will bring it to more countries and regions. The future development of Bie-modernism will focus on returning to the origins and implementing life equity/life stocks.

Principles of Construction and Mathematical Models of the Formation of a Solidarity Fund in an Alternative Old-Age Pension System

The basic principles of the formation of a solidary fund in the suggested old-age pension system are to establish the minimum length of service according to which a citizen has the right to an old-age pension, the implementation into the pension calculation system of the indicator "share deducted to a solidary fund" from each transfer to the personal account of the employee, so that by retirement at the age of 60 and working experience of 38 years, the pension amount was exactly equal to the amount of wages used in calculations. With a decrease in the length of service, the pension amount is reduced according to a certain rule. To implement these principles, appropriate mathematical models have been built that allow to calculate the amount of accumulated pension capital, own pension, accumulated amounts in the solidary fund, the total amount in the pension fund, etc., with any work experience, the amount of wages. Complex calculations were performed using the parameters that have developed in the practice of today. The results of the calculations are presented in tables with the corresponding comments.

CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL REGULATION OF THE RIGHT TO CHANGE SEX IN THE CONTEXT OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SOMATIC HUMAN RIGHTS

The article considers the problem of constitutional and legal regulation of the right to change sex in the context of the implementation of somatic human rights. Based on the analysis of ECHR decisions and positive practice of foreign countries, it is noted that gender denial (mismatch between anatomical gender of an individual and his gender identity (mental gender)), i.e. transsexualism, is a type of mental and behavioral disorders of an individual. According to the most Western experts, the only effective method of treating transsexuality that gives more or less satisfactory results is surgical and hormonal correction of sex in accordance with gender self-identification, taking into the account the change of documents and socialization in a new gender role. It is emphasized that the most controversial issue so far is the issue of succession in case of gender reassignment, i.e related to the transfer of rights and responsibilities from a person before gender reassignment to a person after such a change. Emphasis is placed on the need to consolidate the universal succession in the event of a person’s change of sex, which implies the transfer of all property, a set of rights and obligations belonging to the person to the successor, and it is not only about existing rights and obligations, but also future not identified at the time of succession. It is noted that the succession should take into account the ability to accept such rights and responsibilities, the ability of a person (who has changed sex) to bear them (e.g, military service, the right to an old-age pension, etc.), as these provisions form vacuum in legislation. The new legal status of a person who has changed sex is established in full at the time of the final change of identity documents, and this should be the basis for succession in the event of a change of sex. The correlation of the available definitions gave grounds to assert that the right to change (correction) of sexuality is a somatic right, as it allows for the fundamental reconstruction of a person by changing sex. It is concluded that since Art. 51 of the Constitution of Ukraine clearly states that marriage is based on the free consent of women and men, so it is too early to talk about the mechanism of same-sex marriage in Ukraine, as this institution is not enshrined in law. National law also prohibits adoptive parents who are same-sex or unmarried foreigners.

Reality and expectations of old-age pension savings in the pension system of the Slovak Republic

Abstract The aim of the authors is to provide a critical statistical-analytical view of the current pension system of the Slovak Republic with special regard to old -age pension savings in its fifteen-year existence, resulting in proposals for adjustments to its operation. It includes an analysis of the sustainability of pension systems, an analysis of the age distribution of savers as well as possible investment strategies of savers and the distribution of their property savings in pension funds. We model the investment strategy of a participant in old-age pension savings. We draw attention to the evaluation of old -age pension savings in pension funds during its existence and quantify the potential loss caused by an inappropriate investment strategy of savers. The an alysis showed that the Slovak participant in old-age pension savings invests mainly in conservative pension assets, which bring low volatility in the short term, which may not be optimal in the long run. In order to achieve change, we also outline the possibilities of changing the attitudes of savers to value their savings and propose reform steps that would contribute to ensuring a balance between the financial and social sustainability of the pension system.

No Common Ground? Public Knowledge about Welfare Spending in Turkey and its Social Divisions

Social policy research examining citizens’ welfare knowledge, which offers a gateway to their understanding of the policy context, has remained limited. Adapting the opportunity–motivation–ability framework borrowed from the literature on political knowledge to welfare knowledge, this article offers an analysis of new data from a nationwide survey to explore Turkish society’s knowledge of the composition of public social spending. Corroborating earlier findings in the literature, the article maintains that most people in Turkey overestimate the relative size of social assistance spending for the poor. However, different from previous findings, the majority and most pensioners are also ill-informed about the rank of public spending on old-age pensions, the most widely used social benefit absorbing the largest share of welfare spending. The article provides evidence of the social division of welfare knowledge in Turkish society based mostly on three opportunity-related variables: city of residence, gender and income.

Evaluating the significance of cash transfers on household consumption

AbstractThe Old Age Pension (OAP) to elderly South Africans is one of the biggest programs in developing countries. It's a vital income source to many households because it puts a significant cash transfer into the hands of many poor households, and the sharp increase in its take‐up at the minimum eligibility age further demonstrates its importance. This paper estimates the OAP's impact on households’ food security, quality of water and sanitation facilities, where the last two are essential public health‐related outcomes. We find that the OAP has a significant and positive impact on food security, but not on the quality of drinking water and sanitation. We attribute the latter to the high fixed costs associated with access to quality drinking water and proper sanitation services and their nature as a form of public good. The paper further attempts to understand whether gender influences these outcomes.

Sustainable and equitable pensions with means testing in aging economies

A means-tested pension system has a distinct feature that tailors the level of pension benefits according to individual economic status. In the context of population aging with widening gaps in life expectancies, we show that this feature generates an automatic mechanism that (i) mitigates the pressing fiscal cost of an old-age public pension program (fiscal stabilization device) and (ii) redistributes pension benefits to those in need with shorter life expectancies (redistributive device). To evaluate this automatic mechanism, we employ an overlapping generations model with population aging. Our results indicate that this novel mechanism plays an important role in containing the adverse effects of population aging on the fiscal costs and enhancing the progressivity of a pension system. More pronounced aging scenarios further strengthen the role of this mechanism. A well-designed means test rule can create a sufficiently strong automatic mechanism to keep public pensions sustainable and progressive under population aging.

Pension incentives and labor supply: Evidence from the introduction of universal old-age assistance in the UK

We study the labor supply implications of the Old-Age Pension Act (OPA) of 1908, which, for the first time, provided pensions to older people in the UK. Using recently released census data covering the entire population, we exploit variation at the newly created age-based eligibility threshold. Our results show a considerable and abrupt decline in labor force participation of 6.0 percentage points (13%) when older workers reach the eligibility age of 70. To mitigate the impact of population aging today, pension reforms aimed at increasing elderly labor supply, however, have to induce much larger behavioral responses than the OPA.

The transition to NDC in Italy: assessing distributive and financial effects

AbstractMoving from a Defined Benefit (DB) to a Notional Defined Contribution (NDC) pension formula creates significant re-distributive effects. We estimate the amount and the intensity of these effects in the case of the Italian transition to NDC, which began in 1995. Based on administrative data of the main Italian pension scheme (FPLD), we study the evolution of yearly inequality within old-age pension benefits. Furthermore, we study the adequacy and the actuarial fairness of the pension system, by estimating the replacement rates and the Net Present Value Ratio distribution for workers who retired in the period 1996–2019. Our results show that the very generous interpretation of acquired rights determined by the 1995 reform has contributed to maintaining a high level of adequacy and a significant level of intergenerational imbalance. The financial costs of this imbalance are estimated and its extent is significant.

Do taxes and transfers reduce gender income inequality? Evidence from eight European welfare states

We examine how taxes and transfers affect the incomes of men and women. Using microsimulation and intra-household income splitting rules, we measure the differences in the level and composition of individual disposable income by gender in eight European countries covering various welfare regime types. We quantify the extent to which taxes and transfers can counterbalance the gender gap in earnings, as well as which policy instruments contribute most to reducing the gender income gap. We find that with the exception of old-age public pensions, all taxes and transfers significantly reduce gender income inequality but cannot compensate for high gender earnings gaps. Our findings suggest that gender income equality is more likely to be achieved by promoting the universal/dual breadwinner model, whereby women's labour force participation and wages are on a par with men. To achieve this, men will likely need to work less and care more.