Pensions for Public-Sector Employees : Lessons from OECD Countries’ Experience
In 27 out of 34 OECD member countries, there is institutionally separate retirement-income provision for some or all public-sector workers. But the scope of these pension schemes varies significantly: from a modest top-up to the national pension ar...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/10/26884076/pensions-public-sector-employees-lessons-oecd-countries’-experience http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25286 |
| Summary: | In 27 out of 34 OECD member countries,
there is institutionally separate retirement-income
provision for some or all public-sector workers. But the
scope of these pension schemes varies significantly: from a
modest top-up to the national pension arrangements (covering
private-sector workers as well) to entirely independent
retirement-income regimes. Average expenditure on these
schemes amounts to about 1.5 percent of GDP, or nearly a
quarter of total public pension spending. Public-sector
pension reform is an issue of great political importance in
many countries. Central governments’ workforces are ageing
rapidly in all but four of the 26 countries for which data
are available. One in three of central-government employees
were aged 50 and over in 2009, compared with 22 percent in
1995. This rapid ageing is pushing up the cost of pension
schemes at a time when many OECD countries are embarking on
fiscal consolidation. This paper examines the arguments and
the options for reforming public-sector pension schemes from
an international viewpoint. It assesses five different
policies to reduce expenditures or increase contribution
revenues, showing how these can have very different effects
in a public-sector scheme than with national
retirement-income arrangements. |
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