Search results

In this article we investigate the impact of the 1996 pension crisis in Russia on several measures of subjective well-being (SWB). Using a difference-in-difference strategy and an individual fixed-effects model, we find that an exogenous shock to the redistribution system has a significant negative effect on the SWB of pensioners who fail to receive their pensions. The effect differs across aspects of life evaluation; the shock has a significant negative effect on current life satisfaction (LS), whereas it has no effect on self-assessed health. The effect of the shock extends to non-pensioners who live with pensioners in arrears: they experience an equally strong and significant decline in LS even after accounting for personal income. In addition, we find that the pension crisis leads pensioner households to neither receive more nor send less money to extended family, thus leaving these households to bear alone the entire monetary cost. Lastly, we find suggestive evidence that the crisis, despite being a purely monetary shock, affects well-being in ways that go beyond the monetary size of pension loss. Policies aimed to fully compensate for such disruptions in the redistribution system would need to take these externalities into account.

The purpose of this paper is to examine alternative sources of retirement income apart from the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) pension benefits and the significance of these retirement income sources in the consumption decisions of pensioners in Ghana.

Using household survey data on SSNIT pensioners in Accra, Ghana, this study employ the Garrett and Kendall coefficient of concordance (W-test) to robustly identify the sources of retirement income and determine the significance of these income sources in financing consumption expenditure during retirement.

The findings show that apart from SSNIT pension benefits, other sources of retirement income including rental income, income from post-retirement jobs and remittances from family and friends are significant sources of income for pensioners in Ghana. Personnel savings and investment was the least important source of retirement income.

Further research will be needed to validate these results, particularly using household survey data that covers the entire country.

The study contributes to the scanty literature on retirement income by robustly identifying the alternative sources of retirement income and their importance or significance to pensioners in Ghana.

This research aims to illustrate the differential treatment of children and pensioners in Russia and to explain why this has not led to age group conflict through an illustration of age group interdependency.

Age group conflict is revealed through analysis of the government's policies to age groups and expenditure preferences. Interdependency is analysed by the calculation of poverty rates and contribution of age specific benefits, using nationally representative sample survey data.

The Russian government treated pensioners preferentially to children, even though children were at higher risk of poverty. However, within each age group poverty rates are mediated by household structures. Pensioners who live with children face higher poverty rates than the average for pensioners and those who co‐reside with lone mothers face the highest poverty rates of all pensioners, while their pension contribution to the household is of vital significance. Children living with one grandparent face higher poverty rates than average, whereas and those living with two grandparents face lower poverty rates.

The structure of intergenerational relationships and financial solidarity between generations provide essential context for understanding individual welfare in Russia.

Children's downgraded status in Russian society needs to be urgently addressed. Lone mothers, their children and their parents face the highest poverty rates and need of support. Amongst pensioners, women pensioners are particularly at risk.

The originality is in using two opposing perspectives on relations between age groups to show that preferential treatment of pensioners coexists with a high degree of financial linkage between generations.

This paper aims to explore the effects of the increased influence of accounting on core values and practices within the services providing home care in Sweden – a public sector setting involving inter‐organisational cooperation.

Case study data were obtained primarily through semi‐structured interviews with managers and front‐line staff involved in home care.

When accountingisation is extended to include inter‐organisational cooperation, a form of heterogeneous accountingisation occurred in the home care services: an internal domain (with a low level of accountingisation) could be differentiated from an inter‐organisational domain (with a high level of accountingisation). When the accounting‐induced disturbances intensified, there was a redefinition of core values. In the internal domain, core values of pensioner‐oriented focus and flexibility during service delivery persisted. In contrast, in the inter‐organisational domain, core values had the legal boundaries of the organisation as their central foundation, standardisation was emphasised, and inter‐organisational work practices were defined as the other organisation's responsibility. The findings also extend the research on absorption groups by indicating the rise of a new type of absorption process. Absorption was not undertaken by a few individuals, specialist work groups or satellite organisations, as described in the literature; instead, all front‐line welfare professionals were involved in absorbing the accounting‐induced disturbances when performing their tasks.

This case study research is context‐specific and the meaning and consequences of accountingisation may differ within the public sector because of the status and strength of professional groups concerned.

To date, research on accountingisation has primarily employed an intra‐organisational perspective. This paper analyses accountingisation in an inter‐organisational setting.

Pension income provides the main means for augmenting consumption expenditure and maintaining the welfare of households during retirement. Debate on the reduction in consumption expenditure upon retirement due to insufficient pension income is ongoing. This study seeks to investigate the impact of pensioners without additional income apart from SSNIT pension income on their consumption expenditure.

This is a quantitative study. Primary data were used in this study. The population includes SSNIT pensioners who are household heads and aged between 56 and 64 years in Ajumako – Enyan – Essiam District (AEED) in the Central Region of Ghana. The study deployed simple random sampling to sample 164 respondents and estimated the consumption expenditure model using White’s heteroskedasticity-corrected standard errors of OLS.

The findings show that pension income from SSNIT positively influences consumption expenditure on nondurable goods at retirement. The findings also show a drop in consumption expenditure at retirement by pensioners who do not earn additional income.

This calls for an increase in the SSNIT pension income paid to persons who are on retirement. Also, employees are encouraged to plan early, save enough resources and invest in their working life before they retire. Variables such as health status and rural/urban areas were not included in the study. Also, panel data would have been suitable for this kind of study, but due to the unavailability of data, cross-section data were used. These are the limitations of the study.

This study investigated the impact of pensioners without additional income apart from SSNIT pension income on their consumption expenditure. The study also examined whether pensioners without additional sources of income apart from SSNIT pension income can sustain their consumption expenditure on nondurable goods at retirement.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-10-2021-0616.

The purpose of this study is to provide broader understanding of the significant role that the pension system has in the Spanish economy by estimating the sectoral production, employment and income sustained by pensioners' consumption.

Based on input–output tables by the World Input–Output Database and consumption data from the Household Budget Survey by the Spanish Statistical Office, a demoeconomic model is applied to quantify the direct impacts, indirect impacts from interindustry links and induced impacts from income–consumption connections over a nine-year period (2006–2014). Then, the factors driving the evolution of total output, employment and value added during such period have been examined by using structural decomposition analysis.

The growing participation of consumption by pensioner households in final demand had proven crucial during the 2008 crisis to alleviate the negative trend in production and employment derived from the collapse in consumption suffered by the rest of households.

Determining the underlying factors driving changes in both employment and income during the 2008 crisis can be of interest in political decision-making on the sustainability of the Spanish pension system.

The results of estimating both the employment and income supported by pensioners' consumption reveal the significant stabilizing effect of the public spending on pensions, particularly during the 2008 crisis.

The current Spanish approach of attaining the pension system sustainability by merely reducing social protection costs ignores the adverse consequences of a lower pensioners' demand. This paper addresses an alternative view in which pension spending is not considered a burden on economic growth but rather a means of improving the level of production and employment.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2019-0047

The National Pensioners’ Convention aims to challenge the case for current government policies to raise the age of retirement from paid work and to diversify routes to and amounts of pensions entitlement. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This policy-oriented commentary draws on evidence and arguments presented in the National Pensioners’ Convention Manifesto about the relative affluence of socio-economic class groups and their length of life after 65.

In contrast to government claims of simplifying pensions by introducing single-tier state pensions, three different pension schemes will coexist for many years and in many cases these will provide less than current entitlements. Other universal pensioner benefits such as concessionary travel and winter fuel payments are now also the target of financial cost savings. Access to home care and residential care is increasingly restricted by service cuts and wider means testing.

National Pensioners’ Convention Manifesto argues that the standard of care and support for older people needs to be guaranteed to be set above current poverty levels, to be linked to price and consumer indices and earnings, for universal pensioner benefits to be maintained, for a National Health and Care Service to be free at the point of use, funded through taxation and for standards to be improved through a legally binding Dignity code.

This commentary expresses the views of a non-party campaigning organisation run by pensioners themselves to highlight their case for ways in which they may gain increased rather than decreased support for maintaining active living in later life.

Although tax relief on pensions is a controversial area of government expenditure, this is the first study of the tax effects for a real-world defined benefit pension scheme. First, we estimate the tax and national insurance contribution (NIC) effects of the scheme's change from final salary to career average revalued earnings (CARE) in 2011 on the gross and net wealth of the sponsor, government, and 16 age cohorts of members, deferred pensioners, and pensioners. Second, we measure the size of the twelve income tax and NIC payments and reliefs for new members and the sponsor, before and after the rule changes. We find the total subsidy split is roughly 40% income tax subsidy and 60% NIC subsidy. If lower tax rates in retirement and the risk premium effect of the exempt-exempt-taxed (EET) system are not viewed as a tax subsidy, the tax subsidy to members largely disappears. Any remaining subsidy drops, as a proportion of pension benefits, for high earners, as does that for NICs.

Provides a framework for analysing the financing of state pensions with a wide range of policy options. Special attention is given, however, to two special cases: the first involves a means‐tested pension similar to the Australian scheme, while the second is similar to the basic pension (the first tier) in the UK. Emphasis is given to the implications of population ageing for pension finance in each scheme; a range of policies can be considered using specially designed computer programs.