Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World
Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World

Author: Courtney C. Coile

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-12-12

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 022661929X

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In developed countries, men’s labor force participation at older ages has increased in recent years, reversing a decades-long pattern of decline. Participation rates for older women have also been rising. What explains these patterns, and the differences in them across countries? The answers to these questions are pivotal as countries face fiscal and retirement security challenges posed by longer life-spans. This eighth phase of the International Social Security project, which compares the social security and retirement experiences of twelve developed countries, documents trends in participation and employment and explores reasons for the rising participation rates of older workers. The chapters use a common template for analysis, which facilitates comparison of results across countries. Using within-country natural experiments and cross-country comparisons, the researchers study the impact of improving health and education, changes in the occupation mix, the retirement incentives of social security programs, and the emergence of women in the workplace, on labor markets. The findings suggest that social security reforms and other factors such as the movement of women into the labor force have played an important role in labor force participation trends.

Reforming Pensions: Principles and Policy Choices
Reforming Pensions: Principles and Policy Choices

Author: Nicholas Barr

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2008-09-17

Total Pages: 785

ISBN-13: 0199885990

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Mandatory pensions are a worldwide phenomenon. However, with fixed contribution rates, monthly benefits, and retirement ages, pension systems are not consistent with three long-run trends: declining mortality, declining fertility, and earlier retirement. Many systems need reform. This book gives an extensive nontechnical explanation of the economics of pension design. The theoretical arguments have three elements: * Pension systems have multiple objectives--consumption smoothing, insurance, poverty relief, and redistribution. Good policy needs to bear them all in mind. * Good analysis should be framed in a second-best context-- simple economic models are a bad guide to policy design in a world with imperfect information and decision-making, incomplete markets and taxation. * Any choice of pension system has risk-sharing and distributional consequences, which the book recognizes explicitly. Barr and Diamond's analysis includes labor markets, capital markets, risk sharing, and gender and family, with comparison of PAYG and funded systems, recognizing that the suitable level of funding differs by country. Alongside the economic principles of good design, policy must also take account of a country's capacity to implement the system. Thus the theoretical analysis is complemented by discussion of implementation, and of experiences, both good and bad, in many countries, with particular attention to Chile and China.

Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World
Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World

Author: Axel Börsch-Supan

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2025-03-10

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0226836363

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A global analysis of the effects of social security reforms on the retirement incentives and labor force trends of older workers. Employment among older men and women has increased dramatically in recent years, reversing a downward trend in the closing decades of the twentieth century. Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World examines how changing retirement incentives have reshaped labor force participation trends among older workers. The chapters feature country-specific analyses for Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They find that while there is significant heterogeneity across countries, the reforms of recent decades have generally reduced the implicit tax on work at older ages. These changes correlate positively with labor force participation. The studies exploit the variation in the timing and extent of reforms of retirement incentives and employ microeconometric methods to investigate whether this correlation reflects a causal relationship. Policy changes appear to have contributed to rising labor force activity, but other factors like the role of women in the labor force, improved health, and changes in private pensions likely also play important roles.

The Battle for Social Security
The Battle for Social Security

Author: Nancy J. Altman

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2012-06-29

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1118429362

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This book illuminates the politics and policy of the current struggle over Social Security in light of the program's compelling history and ingenious structure. After a brief introduction describing the dramatic response of the Social Security Administration to the 9/11 terrorist attack, the book recounts Social Securityâ??s lively history. Although President Bush has tried to convince Americans that Social Security is designed for the last century and unworkable for an aging population, readers will see that the President's assault is just another battle in a longstanding ideological war. Prescott Bush, the current Presidentâ??s grandfather, remarked of FDR, "The only man I truly hated lies buried in Hyde Park." The book traces the continuous thread leading from Prescott Bush and his contemporaries to George W. Bush and others who want to undo Social Security. The book concludes with policy recommendations which eliminate Social Security's deficit in a manner consistent with the program's philosophy and structure.

The People's Pension
The People's Pension

Author: Eric Laursen

Publisher: AK Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 834

ISBN-13: 1849351015

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Explores the potential benefits of a government-independent, democratized Social Security system to support dependents suffering from the reduction of other government benefits.

Inequality, Social Protection and Social Justice
Inequality, Social Protection and Social Justice

Author: James Midgley

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2020-03-28

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1789905583

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This thought-provoking book examines the role of social protection in reducing inequality and enhancing social justice. It assesses social protection’s impact on inequality in different parts of the world and shows that if carefully designed, adequately funded and effectively implemented, it can make a significant contribution to reducing income, gender and other forms of inequality. In this way, it can promote egalitarian ideals and enhance social justice.

Psychological Testing in the Service of Disability Determination
Psychological Testing in the Service of Disability Determination

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2015-06-29

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0309370930

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The United States Social Security Administration (SSA) administers two disability programs: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), for disabled individuals, and their dependent family members, who have worked and contributed to the Social Security trust funds, and Supplemental Security Income (SSSI), which is a means-tested program based on income and financial assets for adults aged 65 years or older and disabled adults and children. Both programs require that claimants have a disability and meet specific medical criteria in order to qualify for benefits. SSA establishes the presence of a medically-determined impairment in individuals with mental disorders other than intellectual disability through the use of standard diagnostic criteria, which include symptoms and signs. These impairments are established largely on reports of signs and symptoms of impairment and functional limitation. Psychological Testing in the Service of Disability Determination considers the use of psychological tests in evaluating disability claims submitted to the SSA. This report critically reviews selected psychological tests, including symptom validity tests, that could contribute to SSA disability determinations. The report discusses the possible uses of such tests and their contribution to disability determinations. Psychological Testing in the Service of Disability Determination discusses testing norms, qualifications for administration of tests, administration of tests, and reporting results. The recommendations of this report will help SSA improve the consistency and accuracy of disability determination in certain cases.

Social Protection and the Market in Latin America
Social Protection and the Market in Latin America

Author: Sarah M. Brooks

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-11-03

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 1139474405

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Social security institutions have been among the most stable post-war social programs around the world. Increasingly, however, these institutions have undergone profound transformation from public risk-pooling systems to individual market-based designs. Why has this 'privatization' occurred? Why do some governments enact more radical pension privatizations than others? This book provides a theoretical and empirical account of when and to what degree governments privatize national old-age pension systems. Quantitative cross-national analysis simulates the degree of pension privatization around the world and tests competing hypotheses to explain reform outcomes. In addition, comparative analysis of pension reforms in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay evaluate a causal theory of institutional change. The central argument is that pension privatization emerges from political conflict, rather than from exogenous pressures. The argument is developed around three dimensions: the double bind of globalization, contingent path-dependent processes, and the legislative politics of loss imposition.