Classification of pension systems in the EU AIM Work Package 2 Cok Vrooman A comparative typology of pension regimes, A. Soede & C. Vrooman (2008) Enepri Research Report No. 54,

How to make European pensions adequate and sustainable? Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, October 20, 2008 Research questions Can the various pension systems in the European Union, the US, Canada, Australia and Norway empirically be reduced to a limited number of pension regime types? Do pension regime types correspond with Esping-Andersen’s more general typology of welfare regimes (SD, LIB, CORP)? Is there a connection between pension regime types and: a) the future ageing process? b) recent differences in pension reforms (path dependency)?

How to make European pensions adequate and sustainable? Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, October 20, 2008 Regimes/methodology Regimes: Diverging types of coherent systems of formal rules which aim to achieve distinct collective goals. Categorical principal components analysis (CatPCA): Institutional data for 34 pension scheme traits (pension level/wealth, organisation/structure, retirement age) in 23 countries Optimal scaling of both countries and pension scheme traits on a limited number of uncorrelated underlying dimensions Empirical pension regime typology: country clusters with diverging scores on interpretable dimensions?

How to make European pensions adequate and sustainable? Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, October 20, 2008 A previous ‘mixed’ typology of social security and pensions, 2004 Scaling of 23 countries Based on 85 traits of social security, pensions and labor market Source: Soede, Vrooman, Ferraresi & Segre (2004)

How to make European pensions adequate and sustainable? Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, October 20, 2008 The pension typology: component loadings Scaling of 34 traits of pension systems Based on 23 countries Source: Soede & Vrooman (2008)

How to make European pensions adequate and sustainable? Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, October 20, 2008 The pension typology: country scores Scaling of 23 countries Based on 34 traits of pension systems Source: Soede & Vrooman (2008)

How to make European pensions adequate and sustainable? Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, October 20, 2008 Relationship with future ageing process

How to make European pensions adequate and sustainable? Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, October 20, 2008 Relationship with recent policy reforms ( )

How to make European pensions adequate and sustainable? Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, October 20, 2008 Conclusions Pension systems in the EU c.a. can be reduced to a limited number of pension regime types. But: no complete correspondence with theoretical Esping- Andersen classification (only liberal, corporatist). Pension regimes are not to be equated with the welfare regimes which provide for the non-elderly. Regime types face different demographic challenges, e.g. corporatist group (already aged, high ageing >2025) Pension reforms tend to be path-dependent  convergence of pension schemes within the EU is not a natural outcome