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Pensions: More Information, Less Ideology pp 113–135Cite as

What We Know and What We do not Know about the Willingness to Provide Self-Financed Old-Age Insurance

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Abstract

The point of departure for this chapter is the current flurry of pension reforms in Europe, actually, around the world. The reason for these reforms are well known, and it is no surprise that they are particularly debated in Europe: of the world regions, Europe has the highest proportion of population aged 65 or over (NAS, 2001). Within Europe (and hence in the world), Italy has the highest proportion of people aged 65 or over (18% in 2000), but Belgium, Sweden and Greece also score very high (17% or more). Outside Europe, only Japan has a similar age structure (about 17% of the population is 65 or over). In Europe, the ratio of persons aged over 65 as a percentage of the working age population 20–64 (the dependency ratio), is expected to increase from about 27% in 2000 to 39% in 2025, and to 53% in 2050 (European Commission, 2000). This increase of the dependency ratio in itself places a heavy financial burden on society.

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Authors
  1. Axel Börsch-Supan
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fondazione Debenedetti and University of Bocconi, Italy

    Tito Boeri

  2. University of Mannheim, Germany

    Axel Börsch-Supan

  3. University of Venice, Italy

    Agar Brugiavini

  4. University of Nottingham, UK

    Richard Disney

  5. Tilburg University, The Netherlands

    Arie Kapteyn

  6. University of Tor Vergata, Italy

    Franco Peracchi

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© 2001 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Börsch-Supan, A. (2001). What We Know and What We do not Know about the Willingness to Provide Self-Financed Old-Age Insurance. In: Boeri, T., Börsch-Supan, A., Brugiavini, A., Disney, R., Kapteyn, A., Peracchi, F. (eds) Pensions: More Information, Less Ideology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3363-1_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3363-1_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-4916-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-3363-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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