Departmental Papers

Pension Reforms in Europe: How Far Have We Come and Gone?

ByArmand P Fouejieu, Alvar Kangur, Mauricio Soto

September 10, 2021

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Format: Chicago

Armand P Fouejieu, Alvar Kangur, and Mauricio Soto. "Pension Reforms in Europe: How Far Have We Come and Gone?", Departmental Papers 2021, 016 (2021), accessed 12/7/2025, https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513593920.087

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Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

In the past few decades, a myriad of reforms in Europe have had a significant impact on the way and extent to which public pensions provide retirement income. This departmental paper takes stock of where European pension systems stand and assesses their key characteristics. We present a novel measure of the balance between lifetime benefits and contributions—the Proportionality Measure—to examine pension systems’ long-term sustainability, fairness, and intergenerational equity

Subject: Aging, Expenditure, Fiscal policy, Labor, Pension reform, Pension spending, Pensions, Political economy, Population and demographics, Retirement

Keywords: Aging, Europe, IMF library, intergenerational fairness, internal rate of return, lifetime benefit, pension adequacy, Pension and social policy, Pension reform, Pension spending, pension system, Pensions, poverty rate, Retirement, sustainability