­AIM - Adequacy and sustainability of old-age income maintenance

This project aims at providing a strengthened conceptual and scientific
basis for assessing the capacity of European pension systems to deliver
adequate old age income maintenance in a context of low fertility and
steadily increasing life expectancy. The main focus is on the capacity
of social security systems to contribute to preventing poverty among
the old and elderly and more generally to enable persons to take all
appropriate measures to ensure stable or “desired” distribution of
income over the full life cycle. In addition it will explore and
examine the capacity of pension systems to attain broad social
objectives with respect to inter- and intra generational solidarity.

Furthermore it will examine the capacity of
pension systems to allow workers to change job or to move temporarily
out of the labour market and to adapt career patterns without losing
vesting of pensions rights. The project will also address the specific
challenges with respect to providing appropriate old age income for
women.

A general objective of the research project
will be to clearly identify and analyse the potential trade-offs
between certain social policy objectives and overall stability of
public debt.

AIM is financed under the 6th EU Research Framework Programme. It
started in May 2005 and includes partners from both the old and new EU
member states.

Participating institutes:

Centre for European Policy Studies, CEPS, Belgium, coordinator

Federal Planning Bureau, FPB, Belgium

Deutsches Institut für Wirtschafsforschung (German Institute for Economic Research), DIW, Germany

Elinkeinoelämän tutkimuslaitos, (The Research Institute of The Finnish Economy), ETLA, Finland

Fundación de Estudios de Economía Aplicada , FEDEA, Spain

Social and Cultural Planning Office, SCP, Netherlands

Instituto di Studi e Analisi Economica (Institute for Studies and Economic Analysis), ISAE, Italy

National Institute for Economic and Social Research, NIESR, United Kingdom

Centrum Analiz Spolleczno-Ekonomicznych (Center for Social and Economic Research), CASE, Poland

Tarsadalomkutatasi Informatikai Egyesules (TARKI Social Research Informatics Centre), TARKI, Hungary

Centre for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, CeRP, Italy

Institute for Economic Research, IER, Slovak Republic

Inštitut za ekonomska raziskovanja (Institute for economic research), IER, Slovenia

FINAL CONFERENCE

Adequacy – the concept and its
operationalisation: Elsa Fornero, CeRP

Classification of pension
systems in the EU: Cok Vrooman, SCP

Paper:
A comparative typology of pension systems

Pension reforms and public
opinion: Robert Gal, TARKI

Pension reforms and the
labour market: Juraj Draxler,
CEPS

Gender
difference in retirement income and pension policy – simulating the effects of various DB and DC schemes

Equality
of retirement benefits received by men and women in selected European
countries: childbearing and future benefits

Womens’
pension rights and survivors’ benefits: a comparative analysis of EU member
states and candidate countries

Differences
in the productivity levels of older workers in the EU: a cross country analysis
of the age-wage relationship

The
option value model in the retirement literature: the trade-off between
computational complexity and predictive validity

Approaches to modelling: results of MIDAS
simulations for Belgium, Germany and Italy: Gijs Dekkers, FPB

Ensuring sustainability and
actuarial fairness: Martin Weale, NIESR

Poverty and social inclusion of the
elderly: Cok Vrooman, SCP and Nada Stropnik, IER

Social
exclusion of the elderly: a comparative study of EU member states

 

Maintaining living
standards: Margherita Borella, CeRP

 

Solidarity between and
within generations: Hannu Piekkola, ETLA

Social
security and retirement during transition: microevidence from Slovenia