Reinventing the Retirement Paradigm

by Clark, Robert L.; Mitchell, Olivia S.

• ISBN13: 9780199284603
• ISBN10: 0199284601
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-10-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book explores how rising pension and healthcare costs along with workforce aging are affecting pension and retirement planning around the world. Many middle-aged workers now realize that they will have to work longer than intended as they begin to recognize that their retirement resources will be inadequate to finance retirement consumption. Volatile capital markets, rising medical-care costs and low saving rates make retirement behavior and policy a moving target. Olivia Mitchell, Executive Director of the Pension Research Council at Wharton and Robert L. Clark, Professor of Business Management and Economics at North Carolina State University, explore these themes with colleagues, touching on a diverse set of issues ranging from employment trends to pension accounting and investment to retirement system overhaul. They illustrate how employers are actively reformulating the meaning of work and retirement, seeking to encourage more people to work longer than ever before in the face of projected labor shortages. At the same time, public and private trust in traditional pension offerings is rapidly eroding, as companies alter, amend and terminate their conventional plans in the face of poor investment performance and new methods of pension accounting. Experts from the UK, the US, Japan, Sweden and Canada offer international perspectives on the evolving institutions of retirement practice. This book provides readers a range of insights and strategies not available in other volumes, and it represents an invaluable addition to the PRC/OUP series. It will be particularly valuable for managers working toward more efficient pension plans; to scholars and policymakers seeking to maximize pension design and effectiveness and to actuaries and tax specialists concerned with pension regulation. The Pension Research Council at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania was founded 50 years ago to encourage research and teaching on pensions and retirement security. Council projects address the long-term issues that underlie contemporary concerns and seek to broaden public understanding of these complex arrangements through research onto their social, economic, legal, actuarial and financial foundations of privately and publicly provided benefits.

Table of Contents

The State of Play

The Changing Retirement Paradigm

Looking Backward, Looking Forward: Where is Pension Policy Headed?

Reality Testing for Pension Reform

Redefining Retirement

Older Workers: Employment and Retirement Trends

Work and Retirement Plans Among Older Americans

The Future of Pension Plan Design

Strategies to Retain Older Workers

Developments in Phased Retirement

Manating the Retirement Promise

Educating Pension Plan Participants

Changes in Accounting Practices Will Drive Pension Paradigm Shifts

Why Pension Fund Management Needs a Paradigm Shift

Profitable Prudence: the Case For Public Employer Defined Benefit Plans

In Serach of a New Pension Paradigm: The Global Outlook

The Future of Pensions in Canada

The Future of Retirement in Sweden

Risk Management and Pension Plan Choice in Japan

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