Two new books edited by the CISS

The CISS edited two new books:

1. "Trabajo y Envejecimiento. Teorías Emergentes y Perspectivas Empíricas" along with the CIEDESS and Cajas de Chile.
2. "Haciendo lo mejor para las familias" with the OECD and the CIEDESS.

If you are interested in purchasing any of these books, contact CISS through the mail publicaciones@ciss.org.mx or send your application through the Internet portal.

In Chile the adult population has doubled since 1990

Casen Survey Data in Chile reveal that the elderly population has doubled since 1990. There are currently 2,638,000 older adults. More information here.

The Americas Social Security Report celebrates 10 years – Fairness, Work, Retirement, and Social Protection 2012

Following with the summary of 10 years of Americas Social Security Reports, this note will discuss the Americas Social Security Report 2012 – Fairness, Work, Retirement, and Social Protection. The Report contributes to the debate over how regulations on work and retirement should be reformed, and how social security should evolve so as to make retirement a benefit and not a costly event. The Report provides statistics about main variables that characterize labor markets across the lifecycle,  summarizes the main hypothesis provided by the social sciences on the phenomenon of retirement age, and provides a detailed compilation of information and a significant actuarial analysis to obtain simple measurements of pension retirement benefits that can be compared between systems.

The Americas Social Segurity Report celebrates 10 years - The Challenges of Aging and Disability 2006

Following with the summary of 10 years of AmericasSocial Security Reports, this note will discuss the Americas Social Security Report2006 – The Challenges of Aging and Disability: Employment and Insurance,International Social Security Agreements. The Report studies persons around statutory retirement age and provides a revision of labor market and social security policies for disabled people. It also analyzes the International Social Security Agreements created to protect workers across boarders.

Third Regional Conference on Ageing: Costa Rica

Here the link from the official site of the "Third Regional Conference on Ageing" from 8 to May 11 in San Jose, Costa Rica.

World Health Day - 7 April

World Health Day was celebrated on 7 April. This year the World Health Organization (WHO) chose the theme "Ageing and health: Good health adds life to years" as a topic of major interest. With this, the WHO aims to show how good health throughout life can help older men and women lead full and productive lives and be a resource for their families and communities.

With a weak labor market is not possible to postpone the retirement age

The crisis caused more workers want to delay the retirement. However, this could be limited by the labor market. In a weak labor market, work may not be available for all older workers who wish to keep working. More information here.

Two important news about pensions in Mexico

The first news is that the Presidency of the Republic announced that from 2012 the "70 y Más" program will expand its coverage to urban areas. The program will give 500 pesos a month to adults over 70 years living in marginalized urban areas. More information here.
The second news is that CONSAR introduced a new measure of net return. The change aims to provide workers with more tools to help them in their decision to choose the most profitable fund. More information here.

Indicators of old-age pension benefits in the Americas

Finally, Chapter 7 of the Americas Social Security Report 2012 is aimed at monitoring pension benefits with a perspective of fairness and financial sustainability. By knowing the value of future pension benefits, we can also have a proxy of the debt incurred by social security institutions and governments through their social security pension programs.

Two mail indicators of pension benefits are examined: replacement rates and pension wealth. The average gross replacement rate across CISS-member countries (exluding U.S. and Canada), salaries and gender is 48.9 (average net replacement rate is 54.3). The average gross pension wealth across the distribution of salaries in all LAC countries is 8.4 times the annual salary (average net pension wealth is 9.3)

Key features of general pension regimes for old age

Chapter 6 of the Americas Social Security Report 2012 outlines the methods used to perform the calculations, describes the common patterns found in the formulas defined by legislations to calculate old-age pensions, and discusses the more critical assumptions needed to reach calculations of the next chapter.

The chapter describes the main features of general pension regimes for old age. Among these features are: design, minimum and maximum pensions, pensionable ages, early and late retirement, and years of contribution.

Work for older adults, technology and health

Chapter 5 of the Americas Social Security Report 2012 discusses the extent to which older adults are able to find decent and dignified work after the age of 60, balancing technological, medical, and preventive advantages, but recognizing that illness and fragility are a really for a large portion of the population.

Under the current structure of social security schemes, individuals do not have the necessary incentives to plan renewing their professional career. To facilitate the renewal of careers is required changes in educational programs and job training, and labor laws.

Collective decisions on retirement

Chapter 4 of the Americas Social Security Report 2012 aims to review the policy debates around the setting of retirement ages. Review the most important approaches and findings of the politics behind retirement decisions. Governments have to make decisions on the amount of taxes and benefits to be paid, the statutory retirement age, and on the conditions offered to adults in pre-retirement ages.

In the Americas there is a pending agenda regarding pension reform to adjust retirement ages vis-à-vis life expectancy increases, as well as standardizing retirement ages across sexes.

Individual decisions on retirement

Chapter 3 of the Americas Social Security Report 2012 analyzes how "social security wealth" or "pension entitlements" are generated, and how retirees spend their money. The realization of a retirement even does not depend only, and often not even mainly, upon the parameters of a retirement scheme. Individuals may decide to withdraw from the labor market before the statutory retirement age or to work several years more for reasons of need, family conditions, health, or personal motivation.

These are some of the results of the chapter:
- Individuals work more when their earnings are high and growing, and when they decline or their growth is sluggish, retirement becomes a more attractive option every year.
- More educated individuals tend to retire later in life because earnings growth is higher for them.
- Often workers move from a salaried job to the informal economy to improve their earnings levels.
- Labor market conditions affect workers' decisions on retirement.
- Consumption and work decisions are closely linked. When retirement can induce an excessive fall in consumption, individuals may decide to put it off for a few years.
- Persons seek to stabilize welfare, avoiding alternate periods of high well-being with others of a poor quality of life

Labor market behavior and retirement in the Americas

Chapter II of the Americas Social Security Report 2012 describes the main regional trends in labor variables around statutory retirement ages. It analyzes labor force participation, intensity of work by older adults, earnings of wotking older adults, characteristics of occupied labor, and urban/rural comparisons.

In previous notes we saw some graphs and results, but these are the main conclusions of the chapter:
- Individuals around retirement ages are working more in the Americas when compare 2010 with 1970, with few exceptions.
- There remains a decline in participation in the labor force that usually begins around age 50 and accelerates at age 60.
- Those staying in the market after age 50 have low unemployment, but they work gradually less hours per week.
- There is a very sharp decline in average earnings after age 50 in Latin America.
- By age 60, workers have become self-employed or employers.
- Young women work more in the urban sector, whereas adult women have higher participation in rural areas. Men in the rural sector have higher participation rates, except for the age groups between 30 and 59 years ald when rates are similar. Hours worked and wages are always higher in urban areas.

The Americas Social Security Report 2012

The Americas Social Security Report 2012, conducted by the CISS, analyzes how women and men work and decide on retirement around "normal" or "statutory" retirement ages and how social bodies make decisions on that significand social and political issue. It presents a set of standardized calculations of benefits of the pension systems of the region under current regulations that can be used to compare policies across countries.

Chapter 2 presents data on labor market variables along the life cycle but with special emphasis on workers between ages 50 and 69. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with the economics of retirement ages, both from individual and societal points of view. Chapter 5 states a question that should figure much more prominently on the retirement-age agenda: How much can the "older adult" really work? Chapter 6 summarizes the legislation on old age retirement following a standardized approach of comparisons of systems in America countries. Finally, Chapter 7 compares indicators of general retirement systems in the region.

In Mexico, 28.5% of the EAP will live without a pension and in poverty

In Mexico, 28.5% of the economically active population (EAP) works in the informal sector, and without any type of coverage, they may (or already) arrived to the elderly destitute. More information here.

Joint Annual Technical Meeting of the American Legal Social Commission (CAJS) and Sub-Region V: Mexico and the Latin Caribbean, in Havana, Cuba.

On Thursday 20 and Friday October 21, in the Taganana Meeting Room of the historical National Hotel in the Habana, Cuba, took place the Joint Technical Meeting of the CAJS and Sub-Region V, with the main thematic of the "Transformation of Labor Legislation and Social Protection in Ages Close to Retirement", thanks to the kind support of Cuba’s Ministry of Labor and Social Security.

The meeting consisted of five technical conferences on retirement issues and a sub-regional panel which was attended by representatives of different countries, who spoke on the legal reforms of the retirement age. The speakers who participated were Dr. Gabriel Martínez, Secretary General of the CISS; Ms. Bárbara López, Legal Director of Cuba’s National Social Security Institute; Mr. Walter Funes of the Salvadoran Social Security Institute; Dr. Rafael Modesto Pérez, General Manager of the National Council for Social Security of the Dominican Republic; Dr. Jorge D'Angelo, President of the American Commission for Older Adults; Dr. Estela Altalef, Academic of AMAOTE; Dr. Alberto Fernandez, Director of Care for the Elderly of the Ministry of Public Health of Cuba; Dr. Victor Hugo Borja, Head of the Coordination of Epidemiological Surveillance from the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), Eduardo Morales Aguirre, Coordinator of Social Benefits IMSS; Dr. Martha Miranda, Researcher of the CISS; Verónica Zetter, Coordinator of Institutional Risk Management of IMSS, and Dr. Fidel Ferreras, Social Security Consultant and Former Director of the National Social Security Institute of Spain. As part of the presidium of the meeting, we counted on the distinguished participation of Ms. Yusimí Campos, Cuba’s National Director of Social Security; Mr. Josue Argeñal of Hondura’s Social Security Institute for Law Professionals, and Technical Secretary of the CAJS; Mr. Iker Reyes, Deputy Director of International Affairs at the Institute of Security and Social Services for State Workers, Mexico (ISSSTE), and Dr. Martínez.

One of the most important aspects of this meeting was the presentation of The Americas Social Security Report 2012 by the CISS, and in particular the results of the analysis of social security systems’ expected benefits for retirement in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In total, the meeting was attended by 45 officers from twelve social security institutions and 9 countries from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.

In the following days, you will be able to find all the material of the event (presentations, pictures and list of attendants) directly at the CISS webpage: www.ciss.org.mx

Elderly health should be priority: UN

UN warns that due to aging, the health of older adults should be a priority. Complete note here.

Pension program in Peru

The President of Peru announced that this year will start a pension program for people over 65 in poor areas of the country. The program seeks to provide 250 soles (93 dollars) per month. Complete note here.

Data on the U.S. social security

This link of Fast Facts & Figures provides answers to frequently asked questions about the programs SSA administers in theU.S. It highlights basic program data for the Social Security (retirement, survivors, and disability) and Supplemental Security Income programs.

In addition, this note talks about the financial problems facing the disability program of social security due to the large amount of benefit claims by fired workers and the aging of baby boomers.