Pensions for Public-Sector Employees : Lessons from OECD Countries’ Experience

Whitehouse, Edward

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: pensions;    public employment;    demographics;    labor mobility;   

RP-ID  :  109429

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

In 27 out of 34 OECD member countries,there is institutionally separate retirement-incomeprovision for some or all public-sector workers. But thescope of these pension schemes varies significantly: from amodest top-up to the national pension arrangements (coveringprivate-sector workers as well) to entirely independentretirement-income regimes. Average expenditure on theseschemes amounts to about 1.5 percent of GDP, or nearly aquarter of total public pension spending. Public-sectorpension reform is an issue of great political importance inmany countries. Central governments’ workforces are ageingrapidly in all but four of the 26 countries for which dataare available. One in three of central-government employeeswere aged 50 and over in 2009, compared with 22 percent in1995. This rapid ageing is pushing up the cost of pensionschemes at a time when many OECD countries are embarking onfiscal consolidation. This paper examines the arguments andthe options for reforming public-sector pension schemes froman international viewpoint. It assesses five differentpolicies to reduce expenditures or increase contributionrevenues, showing how these can have very different effectsin a public-sector scheme than with nationalretirement-income arrangements.