Author(s): Silva, Carlos Pereira da ; Corte Real, Pedro ; Bravo, Jorge Miguel ; Vaz-Paralta, Sara Sofia
Date: 2006
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/2190
Origin: Repositório da UTL
Subject(s): Ageing; Longer Longevity; Social Security; Pension
Paper prepared for presentation at the 28th International Congress of Actuaries, Paris 2006
In this paper, we discuss the so-called paradox of ageing, with respect to the members of the age group 55-64 years of age. This generation is (currently) too young to retire, despite the length of their working lives - for some in excess of forty years - and high earnings, yet is too old to continue working, since employers prefer to hire younger, more flexible and less expensive workers. Furthermore, official statistics show that the longevity of this generation is higher than its predecessors, an evolution that would apparently call for a gradual increase in the retirement age. The argument put forward by its advocates is that by keeping people at work for some more years, additional contributions will be received while delaying pension expenditure, thus compensating for the longer longevity prospects. We argue that, from the point of view of the long-term financial sustainability of the Social Security system, it would be preferable to provide this generation with an option to anticipate the retirement age, while penalising their retirement pension until they reach the age of 65. Such an option would serve as an alternative to a scenario of long-term unemployment in which individuals are granted unemployment benefits, normally exceeding the amount of the "anticipated pension", at the same time as they continue to accumulate pension rights with no contributions to the system. Faced with a situation in which rationing exists in the supply of individual life annuities by the insurance market, we discuss the creation of a financial reserve fund to support life-expectancy increases for all generations, funded by a supplementary contribution, which would be used to pay for the pensions in excess of those resulting from a constant lifespan at the age of retirement for all of the generations. Since the "ageing equation" has no single solution, our aim is to broaden the current debate on the long-term financial sustainability of the Social Security systems towards a richer perspective, in which raising the age of retirement is not the only solution.
