wtwco.com (19.05.2022) Trial private retirement savings system to be rolled out in select cities in China in an effort to support an aging population.
worldbank.org (10.02.2022) The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated poverty and threatened livelihoods in Liberia. The need to respond to this challenge spurred the expansion and digitization of the government’s ongoing cash transfer program. The Liberia Social Safety Nets Project launched the government’s first-ever urban cash transfer program. It provided emergency cash transfers for close to 15,000 households living in vulnerable communities in the Greater Monrovia area, which had recorded the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Liberia.
Global Times (21.04.2022) China will soon start a new era of "private pensions" with the imminent implementation of a relevant mechanism, according to a report by the Shanghai Securities News published on Wednesday. The new mechanism, which is characterized by policy support from the government, voluntary participation and market-oriented operations, will be an important transformation of the current pension system that has a basic pension insurance and a corporate pension.
World Economic Forum (17.05.2022) China is a rapidly graying country with those aged 60 or above reaching 267 million or 18.9% of the total population, and this may rise to one-third of the population before 2050. Welfare reform must work in tandem with social policy so as to make active aging an integral part of economic growth, linking health to wealth and common prosperity. Healthcare, labour reskilling and gender parity are three areas of focus for domestic policy to solve the challenges of China’s aging population.
Economic Research Forum (ERF) (February 2022) This policy brief assesses the impact of COVID-19 on Middle East and North Africa (MENA) labor markets through June 2021. We use data from the four waves of the ERF COVID-19 MENA monitor household surveys, spanning November 2020, February 2021, April 2021, and June 2021. We focus on Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia and developments between February 2021 and June 2021.
developmentpathways.co.uk (2022) The report builds on our previous research with ITUC, showing the economic benefits of social protection by examining the different financing options that states have at their disposal in order to strengthen and extend their social protection systems. The study simulates the effects of different tax financing scenarios for social protection on household income, employment and overall GDP. We carried out computable general equilibrium analysis for Bangladesh, Colombia, Costa Rica, Georgia, Ghana, India, Rwanda and Serbia.
europeansting.com (06.05.2022) China’s plan to “gradually delay” the country’s legal retirement age has managed to unify a wide variety of people around a single sentiment: they don’t like it. As a country looking for ways to address the fact that it may not have enough workers paying into its pension system to support an ageing population, however, China is far from alone.
theconversation.com (26.04.2022) So low is Australia’s unemployment rate, the official count says there are now just 580,300 people unemployed – the least since 2009, when Australia’s population was one-sixth smaller than it is today. Compared to just before the start of the pandemic, 184,800 fewer Australians are now unemployed.
Retirement saving is at the centre of the debate on rising income and wealth inequality. This column studies the role of the pension system in wealth accumulation and distribution in Denmark. The authors find that a pension reform in the late 1980s increased the savings rate and aggregate pension assets significantly by introducing mandated funded pensions. Moreover, it has had an equalising effect on the wealth distribution. The findings illustrate the importance of pension system design for the level and distribution of wealth.
weforum.org (31.03.2022) All 13 Canadian provinces and territories have now signed up to the plan which will also create a national daycare system.
