Upcoming event: Work, Retirement Age, and Fiscal Sustainability in an Aging World

Please join AARP’s Office of International Affairs and
the Public Policy Institute for

Work, Retirement Age, and Fiscal Sustainability in an Aging World

Monday, July 23, 2012
10:30 am – 12:00 pm
AARP Learning Center (B2-140)
601 E Street, NW, Washington, DC 20049

Pension fund solvency and retirement-income adequacy are high on the agendas of policymakers around the world. People are living longer, retiring early, and facing layoffs in a global economy where technological and social change can be rapid and unsparing in its impact on workers. In developed countries, promoting longer work lives by raising the age of eligibility for pension benefits has featured prominently in policy reform. Raising the retirement age is particularly appealing to policymakers because it can have a substantial impact on pension fund solvency and because its implementation is often legislated well into the future. Nonetheless, survey data for the United States and European countries suggest that a higher retirement age is not popular with workers, even though many express interest in working well into their retirement years. Moreover, not everyone can work longer, and short of draconian increases, raising the retirement age cannot, by itself, solve the pension problems besetting many countries.

Please join us as we examine various facets of pension reform, longer working lives, and fiscal sustainability of public systems in the United States and around the world with distinguished experts.
Program
Speaker: Christian Toft, University of Kassel, Germany

Upping the Retirement Age: Pension Reform and Labor Supply in the United States and the European Union, 1950-2060

Professor Toft will look at retirement-age policies in the United States and EU15 since 1950 and the impact of those policies on labor force participation at upper ages. He will then discuss recent increases in the statutory pension (or "normal" retirement) age in those countries and how labor force behavior is changing as a result.

Speaker: Richard Jackson, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Pension Reform, Solvency, and Global Competitiveness

Dr. Jackson will highlight the CSIS Global Aging Preparedness Index (http://csis.org/publication/global-aging-preparedness-index), which reviews the adequacy and sustainability of retirement savings systems in 20 key countries, and will provide illustrative examples of other approaches to pension reform, solvency, and old-age income protection. He will also discuss some of the dilemmas policymakers face in implementing reform to entrenched pension systems while providing a decent living standard for the old and not imposing a crushing financial burden on the young.
Discussant: Sandy Mackenzie, AARP Public Policy Institute