James H. Schulz

“The Full Monty” and Life-Long Learning in the 21st Century

In the former Soviet Union, there was no unemployment. Everyone of age had a job. Unfortunately, the Soviet central planning process that ran the country was not able to get large numbers of workers into the jobs most needed by the economy. The result was superb job security and a huge waste of economic manpower. In the United States and other industrialized countries, the opposite occurshigh job insecurity but much less manpower waste. Unemployment insurance was introduced in the West to deal with the loss of jobs, and pensions were introduced to deal with unemployability related to age. But

International developments in social security privatization: What risk to women?

Throughout the world, older women are generally poorer than men. In an era when Social Security programs are increasingly under challenge by advocates of savings and pension schemes administered by the private sector, there is a need to assess the relative advantages of different public/private approaches for dealing with older womens financial needs. What would happen to women if more of the burden were shifted from the public sector to the private sector? This article presents an overview of womens vulnerability in old age and examines the role of public and private pensions in meeting their income needs. It then discusses approaches to Social Security privatization and the special issues for women raised by these issues. Finally, the issues and approaches discussed are illustrated by developments in the United States and Australia.