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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Old-age pensions in Spain
— recent reforms and some of their consequences for the risk of poverty | | Author(s) | Sebastián Sarasa |
| Journal title | Social Policy & Administration, vol 42, no 2, April 2008 |
| Pages | pp 197-210 |
| Keywords | Old persons pensions ; Income [older people] ; Poor elderly ; Social policy ; Spain. |
| Annotation | The starting point of this study is based on the supposition that the successive reforms carried out on the Spanish system of old-age pensions since the 1980s have altered both the intergenerational distribution of income and the risk of poverty for the older population group. The first part of this article outlines how demographic factors and personal incomes affect the risk of poverty. The second part focuses attention on the mediating role played by the social security system in the distribution of intergenerational income, and underlines how the adoption of a longitudinal viewpoint of the intergenerational positions helps to understand the development of the risk of poverty. The third part describes in brief the successive reforms that were carried out on the Spanish retirement pensions regime. Finally, an analysis of the evolution of the personal incomes of older and younger generations has been made, based on the data collected by the European Community Household Panel from 1994 to 2001. This analysis suggests that the reforms have increased the risk of poverty among the over 60s owing to a combination of two factors. Firstly, there has been an increasing tendency among the over 60s to stop working completely, which has reduced job earnings especially for men aged between 60 and 70. Secondly, of more importance, there has been the failure of public pensions to keep pace with the increase in the standard of living, though it is true that they have helped maintain the average purchasing power of the less well-off old-age pensioners. (KJ/RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-080402205 A |
| Classmark | JJD: JF: F:W6: TM2: 76S |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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