The move towards early retirement as witnessed over the last few years in Europe comes from social assistance mechanisms, other than old age security and is not due to a simple earlier retirement age.

Two systems have been used primarily to help older workers. These are disability and employment insurance. “Early retirement” mechanisms have also helped these active or unemployed workers retire, by means of allocating resources.

The social security structure in European countries has remained essentially unchanged with the risks and logistics of management inextricably intertwined. Moreover, these new forms of transition between activity and retirement reveal the reorganization underway in all matters related to the aging workers. One of the implications of the massive movement towards early retirement has been that the tripartite life course in which important social stages within the life course are marked by milestones (e.g., school age, retirement age …) is disappearing. It is gradually being replaced with new flexibility for managing the end of the life course. This type of evolution requires us to rethink the social assistance system in the sense of reducing the distinct ternary division in the life course. From this perspective, the very concepts of retirement and social transfers for definitive inactivity are no longer relevant.

The move towards early retirement as witnessed over the last few years in Europe comes from social assistance mechanisms, other than old age security and is not due to a simple earlier retirement age.

Two systems have been used primarily to help older workers. These are disability and employment insurance. “Early retirement” mechanisms have also helped these active or unemployed workers retire, by means of allocating resources.

The social security structure in European countries has remained essentially unchanged with the risks and logistics of management inextricably intertwined. Moreover, these new forms of transition between activity and retirement reveal the reorganization underway in all matters related to aging workers. One of the implications of the massive movement towards early retirement has been that the tripartite life course in which important social stages within the life course are marked by milestones (e.g. school age, retirement age …) is disappearing. It is gradually being replaced with new flexibility for managing the end of the life course. This type of evolution would require us to rethink the social protection system in the sense of reducing the distinct ternary division in the life course. In this perspective, the very concepts of retirement and social transfers for definitive inactivity are no longer relevant.

The challenge of this paper is to re-examine the demographics which underlie the re-write of social policy in an aging Canada, as related to gender, family and generation. Following a brief consideration of Canada's changes and challenges in comparison to those in the United States and selected European countries, the analytical construct, “life cycles of dependencies and responsibilities” is introduced and utilized to examine shifting bases of security among generations (with a focus on six cohorts), and in particular, the implications of possible changes to social policy for the elderly on women, the poor and other disadvantaged elders.

The baby boom generation is now well into middle age, and over the next few decades will reach old age. As the boom generation grows old the costs of maintaining existing social support systems will rise, and the ability or willingness to sustain those systems has been called into question. In this paper we discuss a number of issues related broadly to population aging in Canada and the associated social “costs,” including the costs of public services. We conclude that while population-related cost increases should be expected, and reallocations of resources required, the overall increases should be of manageable proportions.

The parallels between the funding of an individual pension plan and a paygo social security system are presented. In each plan, the total expected value of benefits can exceed the total expected value of contributions. For the individual pre-funded plan this is true because of the discount factor, δ, representing investment income earnings. For the paygo social security system, the analogous “discount” factor is denoted r, the total of real growth rates of the labour force and real productivity gains per worker, that is, real growth in wealth production. The paper then presents arguments to show that a fully-funded social security scheme is no more secure economically than a paygo scheme. Both schemes rely on the ability of the economy to create and transfer wealth. That is, security for social security does not lie in privatization. The paper also reviews the Reform Party's proposal for a “Super RRSP” replacement for social security and analyses its advantages and disadvantages.

Since the mid-1980s, Canada's social security system has been undergoing a profound transformation. Virtually every major social program has been or is in the process of being changed. The pension system is no exception: every element of Canada's complex retirement income system, both public and private, has been altered in some manner, in some cases profoundly. This paper analyses the various changes to Old Age Security and other elderly benefits under the Mulroney and Chrétien governments, culminating in the new Seniors Benefit. The Conservatives used “social policy by stealth” to make significant changes to elderly benefits, paving the way for the Liberals' plan to rationalize programs into a single income-tested Seniors Benefit. Arguments for and against the Seniors Benefit are considered. The Canada Pension Plan also is under scrutiny by the federal and provincial governments, which are considering two routes to reform — a move from paygo to partial funding, including a more rapid ramp-up in contribution rates, and various options to trim benefits.

The purpose of this research is to examine what factors influence the economic circumstances of widowed women who were in the labour force at some time in their lives. Using the Survey of Ageing and Independence, widows are compared to the married, separated/divorced and the ever single who retired. Widows above and below Statistics Canada Low Income Cut-Off (LICO) are also compared. Models predicting who falls below the Low Income Cut-Off are estimated for all women and for the widows. The findings indicate that 49 per cent of the widows live below the Low Income Cut-Off. Factors associated with living below the poverty line include widowhood, a smaller household, lower levels of education and an occupation at the bottom of the occupational hierarchy. Sources of income that would enhance the likelihood of being above the poverty line, such as RRSPs, investments and a job-related pension, are not common amongst these women despite their previous attachment to the labour force.

The goal of this collective work of about 20 international contributors is to examine the interface between public intergenerational solidarity, central to the welfare state, and intergenerational solidarity within families, including the interaction and interference between the public and private systems. Despite the title, not all contributions address the central theme, although all present varied and useful perspectives. Formal and informal caregiving is discussed extensively as a manifestation of the tension between public and familial solidarity. A key message is that, although social policies regarding intergenerational solidarity are designed to be an instrument of risk management, they are also the source of risk for the continuity and development of intergenerational solidarity.