The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released a report Monday morning highlighting the challenges that longer life expectancy poses to pension systems around the world.
From CNBC:
The world’s retirement bill is coming due—and many countries aren’t ready to pay it.
That’s the conclusion of a report Monday from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group representing the world’s developed countries.
With populations aging and lifespans rising, government-supported pensions are cutting deeper into national budgets, crowding out spending on other programs and services. The added burden comes as the economies of the developed world are growing slowly, putting added pressure on the tax revenues needed to pay rising pension costs.
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“The ongoing rapid demographic shift and the slowdown in the global economy highlight the need for continuing reforms,” OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said. “We must communicate better the message that working longer and contributing more is the only way to get a decent income in retirement.”
The report acknowledges numerous pension reforms by countries and states in recent years, but says more needs to be done. The report presented a handful of reform proposals. From the OECD:
Increasing the effective retirement age can help but more efforts are needed to assist older workers find and retain jobs. Public policies to reduce age discrimination, improve working conditions and increase training opportunities for older workers are essential.
Countries have also introduced reforms to strengthen funded private pensions. The report highlights the importance of increasing coverage rates in countries where funded pensions are voluntary. Auto-enrolment programs have been successful in raising coverage in the countries that have implemented them.
The report also calls for strengthening the regulatory framework to help pension funds and annuity providers deal with the uncertainty around improving life expectancy. It argues that regulators should make sure that providers use regularly updated mortality tables, which incorporate future improvements in mortality and life expectancy. Failure to account for such improvements can result in a shortfall of provisions of well over 10% of the pension and annuity liabilities.
Capital markets could offer additional capacity for mitigating longevity risk, but the transparency, standardization and liquidity of instruments to hedge this risk need to be facilitated. The regulatory framework will also need to reflect the reduction of risk exposure these instruments offer by ensuring they are appropriately valued by accounting standards and lowering the level of required capital for entities hedging their longevity risk.
Issuing longevity bonds and publishing a longevity index to serve as a benchmark for the pricing and risk assessment of hedges would support the development of longevity instruments.
Rebuilding trust is also an important challenge that policy makers face, says the OECD. Young people in particular need to trust the long-term stability of the pension system and the pension promise that is made to them. Communication campaigns and individual pension statements to explain the need for reform and facilitate choice by individuals are needed, says the OECD.
The full OECD report can be read here.
Photo by Horia Varlan via Flickr CC License