EUROPEAN PAPERS ON THE NEW WELFARE

Content Summary

Editorial
Orio Giarini and Mara Tagliabue

General Policy

The Political Economy of State-Based Pensions: A Focus on Innovative Reforms­­
James C. Capretta

Implications of Demographic Change in Enlarged Eu on Patterns of Saving and Consumption and in Related Consumer’s Behaviour­­
Carlo Maccheroni

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1. Not what the Green Movement can do for elderly people, but what elderly people (green seniors) can do for the Green Movement, is the question.
2. Seniors are numerous (their number is growing), they have leisure, energy, creativity, experience, generosity, and they are above daily politics. They are not too old and too forgetful. When they tell clichés and commonplaces, they know it. Young people many times don’t.
3. The green social and ecological movement is not a transitory, not a passing one. If mankind wants to survive they will need an everlasting green movement.
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1. Introduction

Employment is the principal means by which citizens in democratic, market economies can meet their needs and fulfill their socio-economic aspirations. Yet, governments accept high levels of unemployment and low level of employment with a sense of resignation and helplessness. This sense of helplessness is unjustified and unacceptable. The future of today’s youth is too important to be abandoned on the basis of a limited conventional outlook. Furthermore, the facts do not support a pessimistic outlook. In spite of the global population explosion, during the past 50 years the number of new jobs has increased 50% faster than the growth of population and during the past decade global job growth has been 21% higher than population growth.
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Abstract

This paper discusses the insurance market for products for ‘seniors’ in Europe, i.e. those aged over 65, with particular reference to those suffering chronic illnesses. It also provides brief information about four products which, if developed further, may assist in meeting the needs of seniors in Europe — especially those who are chronically ill. It also discusses how these products can be more quickly underwritten by insurers.
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1. Introduction

As a leading supplier of financial protection for individuals and businesses worldwide, AXA constantly seeks to broaden its understanding of retirement issues and challenges. AXA conceived and sponsors the AXA Retirement Scope, a unique and valuable research project, as part of this multifaceted, ongoing effort.
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1. Introduction

Prudential has developed the “Four Pillars of U.S. Retirement” as a framework to discuss how Americans will prepare for and live in retirement. The Four Pillars have their origin in the traditional ‘three-legged stool’ of retirement security: Social Security, Employment-Based Plans, and Personal Savings. To this, Prudential has added a fourth Pillar, Retirement Choices, to capture emerging, non-traditional tools available for today’s and tomorrow’s retirees.
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1. Introduction

Every industrial country is either considering or in the process of implementing major reforms to the web of pension, healthcare and social service programs for the aged sometimes called the ‘generational contract’. In the 1960s and 1970s, policy makers could reasonably assume that any sacrifices they imposed on younger and future generations in the name of dependent elders would be more than offset by rising incomes.
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1. Introduction

The need for pension system reform would appear to be ever more imperative for every European government and country. The immediate consequence for each and every country is the reorganisation of the whole political, economic and social system, indeed of the whole of Europe, since these reforms represent and will come to represent more and more the new post-euro political frontier for the enlarged European Union.
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Abstract

An important objective for social welfare policy has always been to provide safeguards against reductions in income and living standards that result from unemployment, disability, separation, widowhood and other such life course events. This paper examines the effect of such life course disruptions — unemployment, disability, separation and widowhood — on the income and living conditions of those living in EU Member States.
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1. Introduction

The population of the European countries is rapidly ageing, and this process has many social and economic consequences, especially on the labour market of the nations concerned¹. One of the ways which could be followed in order to address the consequences of the decline in numbers and the ageing of the population is to act directly on the undesired demographic conditions to try and modify them. There are many factors which could drive the attempt to reverse, or at least to restrain, this process, obviously to the extent that it is effectively possible. The demographic means to catch up with the goal of a younger age structure and a higher growth rate than zero are basically two²: to increase the fertility or to increase the net migration.
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