The Gender Implications of Pension Reforms. General Remarks and Evidence from Selected Countries

Reforms of public pension programs have been a top social policy priority in a great number of countries around the world over the last decades. The increasing recognition of the implications of demographic changes, awareness of income insecurity in old age, the desire to ensure financial sustainability of pension systems and concerns about the management of public schemes were some of the concerns driving reform debates.

The design of pension schemes differs greatly among countries around the world. How pension schemes look like depends crucially on choices made about system elements, including membership criteria (voluntary vs. mandatory), management of the scheme (public vs. private), possible income-policy or other social goals embodied in pension systems (insurance and equivalence vs. redistribution), the financing method used (funded vs. pay-as-you-go), and procedures for determining the size of a future pension benefit (defined benefit vs. defined contribution schemes). As most national pension systems are comprised of more than one tier, combinations of system elements are found in many cases.