(Lack of) Pension Knowledge

Alan Barrett, Irene Mosca and Brendan J. Whelan ()
Additional contact information
Brendan J. Whelan: Trinity College Dublin

No 7596, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Governments are increasingly concerned about the capacity of pensions systems to meet demands in the coming years. According to the OECD, one part of the policy response in many countries will be greater private provision on the part of individuals through occupational and other pension arrangements. If such a strategy is to work, it requires that individuals are well-informed about pensions. However, there are many reasons to believe that individuals may not be well-informed due to the complexity of pensions systems and degrees of myopia. In this paper, we assess levels of knowledge of pensions using a representative sample of older Irish people. Looking at people who are enrolled in pension schemes, we find that two thirds of these people do not know what amount will be paid out on retirement and/or whether the payments will be in the form of lump-sums, monthly payments or both. Women are more likely not to know, as are people with lower levels of education. While one policy conclusion might be to direct pensions-related information at certain groups, another approach might be to extend the mandatory elements in pension systems such as contribution rates.

Keywords: knowledge; older workers; pensions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I38 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2013-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-dem and nep-eur
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published as 'How Well-informed are Pension Scheme Members on their Future Pension Benefits?: Evidence from Ireland' in: Journal of Aging and Social Policy, 2015, 27(4), 295-313

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp7596.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7596

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().