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Partial de-annuitization of public pensions vs. retirement age differentiation: Which is best to account for longevity differences?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2022

Vincent Vandenberghe Open the ORCID record for Vincent Vandenberghe [Opens in a new window]
Vincent Vandenberghe*
Affiliation:
Economics School of Louvain (ESL), IRES-LIDAM, Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), 3 place Montesquieu, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
*
Corresponding author. Email: vincent.vandenberghe@uclouvain.be
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Abstract

Extensive research by demographers and economists has shown that longevity differs across socio-economic status (SES), with low-educated or low-income people living, on average, shorter lives than their better-endowed and wealthier peers. Therefore, a pension system with a unique retirement age is a priori problematic. The usual policy recommendation to address this problem is to differentiate the retirement age by SES. This paper explores the relative merits of partial de-annuitization of public pensions as a way of addressing the (imperfectly assessed) inequality of longevity.

Keywords

Annuitizationequitylongevity differencepension policyretirement age differentiationH55J14J26
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Pension Economics & Finance , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , January 2024 , pp. 111 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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