The eleventh phase of the International Social Security Project (ISSP) starts to extend our previous analysis of the effects of social security reforms on labor market effects of the average worker by including inequality. We consider differences in income, wealth, and health. How did social security reforms in different countries affect the redistributive characteristics of policies and consequently our income, wealth, and health measures in old age? Can we explain differences in retirement behavior through inequality? The 12 countries participating in the ISSP cover a wide spectrum of social security systems with high and low progressivity and thus allow to compare how the design of social security affects inequality in later life.
Using results from earlier phases, we will calculate pension benefits and retirement probabilities before and after reforms and update our pension calculator. This allows us to calculate the effects of pension reforms on inequality and to evaluate the effect of single reform elements.
The project will be published within the NBER Book Series on “Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World”, forthcoming from University of Chicago Press.
