Rafal Chomik

Pensions, Ageing and Retirement in Australia: Long‐Term Projections and Policies

Australias retirement income provision system, comprising the ‘three pillars’ of a means‐tested aged pension, mandatory occupational superannuation and other, voluntary long‐term savings, is at the heart of understanding the fiscal implications of ageing. While the Intergenerational Report, an account of long‐term fiscal sustainability, is celebrating its tenth birthday since the first edition was published, the Superannuation Guarantee, first implemented in 1992, turns a sprightly 20 years old. This article considers the Intergenerational Report as a prism for studying fiscal, demographic and policy developments in the Australian retirement income system over the last decade and into the future.

Population Ageing and Social Security in Asia

Asian countries are at different stages of demographic transition. While Central and South Asian countries are relatively young and will remain so for some time, East and Southeast Asia are expected to age at an unprecedented rate in the next few decades. Japan has reached the future first. Other nations, such as China, are still young but ageing faster than many advanced economies, including Australia and the USA. This demographic shift has considerable implications for the development of social policy. Here too, countries differ widely. This paper sets the context for the rest of the volume. The focus is mostly on countries in East and Southeast Asia, but it includes contrasting comparisons to key regional countries such as India and Australia. First, the paper presents the context: the demographic, urbanization, and social trends facing Asia. Second, it tackles the allocation of resources for the elderly, in particular, by summarizing approaches to two areas of social policy most pertinent to population ageing: retirement income and health care.

Elderly Support Policies as Resource Contingent Loans

We broaden the idea of an income contingent loan to one which takes account of resources more generally — a resource contingent loan (RCL). We then use Australian policies and policy proposals directed towards the country’s ageing demographic to illustrate how the idea of an RCL is more general than might be thought at first sight. The Age Pension, and the proposal to use housing equity drawdown to finance aged care (a kind of reverse mortgage) are two policy paradigms that fit the pattern of an RCL. The emphasis on age-related programs is deliberate — demographic change implies increasing public expenditure relative to GDP, and policy designs which work to contain these outlays will become increasingly important as populations age.

Australian Superannuation: The Current State of Play

This article focuses on the challenges facing superannuation, the income replacement pillar of Australias retirement income system, as it matures. We discuss four questions: In an era when households are making critical and complex choices that most have never previously confronted, how should policy‐makers and private providers guide choices? How should superannuation be taxed? How should the drawdown phase be structured? And to what extent will the Superannuation Guarantee be able to meet the objective of providing retirement income to substitute or supplement the age pension? This article attempts to provide perspective on each of the issues and concludes with a statement of research need.

Means Testing Social Security: Modeling and Policy Analysis

Means testing can balance the need to provide adequate retirement incomes with the requirement that such provision is fiscally sustainable and economically efficient. Critics of the policy suggest that to reduce benefits as a retiree’s income and/or wealth increase is to discourage work and savings. Yet such distortions are small compared to those resulting from large earnings related pensions that, due to demographic change, require greater levels of financing via payroll taxes. Some form of means testing exists in most countries, usually involving small, safety-net schemes that target the poorest retirees (e.g., the Supplemental Security Income program in the U.S.). But an appropriately designed means-testing instrument can also be used to reduce the liability of large, publicly financed social security promises by excluding the affluent. This paper summarises means-testing design and implementation in a number of OECD countries as well as tackling key criticisms of means testing. In doing so, we discuss a number of recent, cutting-edge modelling approaches and empirical insights that examine economic impacts of means testing in the Australian and U.S. contexts.

The Australian Retirement Income System: Comparisons with and Lessons for the United States

Australia has an atypical retirement income system: it comprises a flat-rate, non-contributory, affluence-tested age pension, and a mandatory, defined contribution accumulation plan to which employers must contribute 9.25 percent (moving to 12 percent) of wages on behalf of their employees. We briefly compare the Australian and US economies and demographies, and then describe the Australian arrangements and assess its econ efficiency and efficacy in delivering retirement support. We focus especially on the means testing of the first pillar in Australia and the mandated membership of pre-funded private pension plans. We conclude by considering insights for the evolution of the US pension reform debate as demographic change unfolds.