Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World

Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World
Author: Courtney C. Coile
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2019-12-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 022661929X

In developed countries, men’s labor force participation at older ages has increased in recent years, reversing a decades-long pattern of decline. Participation rates for older women have also been rising. What explains these patterns, and the differences in them across countries? The answers to these questions are pivotal as countries face fiscal and retirement security challenges posed by longer life-spans. This eighth phase of the International Social Security project, which compares the social security and retirement experiences of twelve developed countries, documents trends in participation and employment and explores reasons for the rising participation rates of older workers. The chapters use a common template for analysis, which facilitates comparison of results across countries. Using within-country natural experiments and cross-country comparisons, the researchers study the impact of improving health and education, changes in the occupation mix, the retirement incentives of social security programs, and the emergence of women in the workplace, on labor markets. The findings suggest that social security reforms and other factors such as the movement of women into the labor force have played an important role in labor force participation trends.

True Security

True Security
Author: Michael J. Graetz
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 388
Release: 1999-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780300081947

Social insurance in the United States--including the Social Security Act of 1935 and the Medicare, Medicaid, and disability insurance programs that were added later--may be the greatest triumph of American domestic policy. But true security has not been achieved. As Michael J. Graetz and Jerry L. Mashaw show in this pathbreaking book, the nation's system of social insurance is riddled with gaps, inefficiencies, and inequities. Even the most popular and successful programs, Medicare and Social Security, face serious financial challenges from the coming retirement of the baby boom generation and the aging of the population. This book challenges the notion that American social insurance must remain inadequate, unaffordable, or both. In sharp contrast to policymakers and analysts who debate only one income security program at a time, Graetz and Mashaw examine social insurance whole to assess its crucial role in providing economic security in a dynamic market economy. They recognize that, notwithstanding a proper emphasis on individual freedom and responsibility, Americans share a common fate that binds them together in a common enterprise. The authors offer us a new vision of the social insurance contract and concrete proposals to make the nation's families more secure without increasing costs.

Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World

Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World
Author: Axel Börsch-Supan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2025-03-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226836363

A global analysis of the effects of social security reforms on the retirement incentives and labor force trends of older workers. Employment among older men and women has increased dramatically in recent years, reversing a downward trend in the closing decades of the twentieth century. Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World examines how changing retirement incentives have reshaped labor force participation trends among older workers. The chapters feature country-specific analyses for Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They find that while there is significant heterogeneity across countries, the reforms of recent decades have generally reduced the implicit tax on work at older ages. These changes correlate positively with labor force participation. The studies exploit the variation in the timing and extent of reforms of retirement incentives and employ microeconometric methods to investigate whether this correlation reflects a causal relationship. Policy changes appear to have contributed to rising labor force activity, but other factors like the role of women in the labor force, improved health, and changes in private pensions likely also play important roles.

Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World

Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World
Author: David A. Wise
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2017-06-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 022644287X

In recent years, the retirement age for public pensions has increased across many countries, and additional increases are in progress or under discussion in many more. The seventh stage of an ongoing research project studying the relationship between social security programs and labor force participation, Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: The Capacity to Work at Older Ages explores people’s capacity to work beyond the current retirement age. It brings together an international team of scholars from twelve countries—Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States—to analyze this issue. Contributors find that many—but not all—individuals have substantial capacity to work at older ages. However, they also consider how policymakers might divide gains in life expectancy between years of work and retirement, as well as the main impediments to longer work life. They consider factors that influence the demand for older workers, as well as the evolution of health and disability status, which may affect labor supply from the older population.

Social Security

Social Security
Author: Larry W. DeWitt
Publisher: CQ Press
Total Pages: 584
Release: 2008
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

A Documentary History tells the story of the creation and development of the U.S. Social Security program through primary source documents, from its antecendents and founding in 1935, to the controversial issues of the present. This unique reference presents the complex history of Social Security in an accessible volume that highlights the program's major moments and events.

Social Security Works For Everyone!

Social Security Works For Everyone!
Author: Nancy J. Altman
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1620976234

Social Security expansion is back on the agenda, at a time when Americans need it more than ever—here’s what it should look like (and why it matters to everyday people all over the country) “Altman and Kingson cut through the fog of calculated confusion and outright lies about Social Security.”—David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author The COVID-19 crisis has pulled the curtain back on America’s looming retirement income crisis, a fraying of the national community, and ever-worsening income inequality. Never before have so many people’s livelihoods and futures been thrown into flux. Now more than ever, expanding Social Security is essential to addressing these challenges. Social Security Works for Everyone!, an evolution of the argument Nancy J. Altman and Eric R. Kingson made in their acclaimed first book, Social Security Works!, presents the case for expanding Social Security, explaining why monthly benefits need to be increased; why Americans need national paid family leave, sick leave, and long term care protections; and how we can pay for it all. Don’t believe the nearly four-decade, billionaire-funded campaign to convince us that the program is destined to collapse. It isn’t. At a time when growing numbers of Americans are seeing beyond the false choice between financial security for working people and financial security for the federal government, this book eloquently makes the case that universal programs that benefit all Americans (yes, even the rich) make our country stronger and our lives more secure. Social Security works because it embodies the best of American values—the ones that will allow Americans to obtain financial security and weather the next crisis.

Social Security Works!

Social Security Works!
Author: Nancy Altman
Publisher: New Press, The
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2015-01-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1620970473

A growing chorus of prominent voices in Congress and elsewhere are calling for the expansion of our Social Security system—people who know that Social Security will not “go broke” and does not add a penny to the national debt. Social Security Works! will amplify these voices and offer a powerful antidote to the three-decade-long, billionaire-funded campaign to make us believe that this vital institution is destined to collapse. It isn't. From the Silent Generation to Baby Boomers, from Generation X to Millennials and Generation Z, we all have a stake in understanding the real story about Social Security. Critical to addressing the looming retirement crisis that will affect two- thirds of today's workers, Social Security is a powerful program that can help stop the collapse of the middle class, lessen the pressure squeezing families from all directions, and help end the upward redistribution of wealth that has resulted in perilous levels of inequality. All Americans deserve to have dignified retirement years as well as an umbrella to protect them and their families in the event of disability or premature death. Sure to be a game-changer, Social Security Works! cogently presents the issues and sets forth both an agenda and a political strategy that will benefit us all. At stake are our values and the kind of country we want for ourselves and for those that follow.