Pension authorities and other bodies provided the primary source material for this report, as part of the OECD/IOPS/ World Bank Global Pension Statistics (GPS) exercise. Data come from official administrative sources and are revised on an ongoing basis so as to better reflect the most recent figures for every past year. Some divergences may exist between national reporting standards and the compilation method of certain data for the GPS exercise. For this reason, data providers are regularly requested to provide methodological information relevant for developing a thorough understanding of their submission under the GPS framework. The general and specific methodological notes below provide some explanations in this respect.
Pension Markets in Focus 2023
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Pension Markets in Focus
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Annex C. Methodological notes
Copy link to Annex C. Methodological notesGeneral notes
Copy link to General notesConventional signs: “..” means not available. “|” means methodological break in series.
This report is mainly based on the answers of pension authorities and other bodies to an annual data request. Some statistics for some jurisdictions come from publicly available reports, databases or websites of other national or international organisations: Japan (Bank of Japan) and Switzerland (Federal Social Insurance Office’s publication Statistique des assurances sociales suisses for personal plans) among OECD countries; and Argentina (International Association of Pension Fund Supervisors (AIOS)), Bolivia (AIOS), China (People’s Republic of) (Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS)), Croatia (website of the Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency (HANFA) before 2014), the Dominican Republic (AIOS before 2014), El Salvador (AIOS), India (annual reports of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation for Employees’ Provident Fund, Employees’ Pension Scheme and Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme), Panama (AIOS) and Uruguay (AIOS before 2016) among non-OECD jurisdictions.
Data on stock variables refer to the end of the year while data on flow variables are provided over the whole year in the report. The reference period is the calendar year, except for: Australia where the reference period is the financial year ending in June; India where the reference period ends in March of the following year for Employees’ Provident Fund, Employees’ Pension Scheme and Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme; and New Zealand (until 2014). Data for New Zealand up to 2013 are based on a 31 March balance date for most of the schemes.
Data on defined benefit plans in Ireland include one large scheme in which members build up rights on a defined contribution basis but which is subject to the Irish funding standard because there is an option for members to purchase an annuity from the scheme at retirement.
Slovenia adopted the euro in 2007, the Slovak Republic in 2009, Estonia in 2011, Latvia in 2014 and Lithuania in 2015. The whole time series (in millions of national currency) are expressed in millions of euro for these countries (even before their adoption of the euro). Data in national currency for Croatia are expressed in kuna even if the euro became the official currency of Croatia as of January 2023.
This report uses five main additional reference series: exchange rates to convert values in US dollars, GDP, the variation of the consumer price index (CPI), population and average annual wages:
This report uses end-of-period exchange rates for all variables valued at the end of the year, and period-average rates for variables representing a flow over the year. These rates come from the IMF International Financial Statistics database.
GDP values for OECD countries are extracted from the OECD Annual National Accounts and Quarterly National Accounts databases. GDP values for non-OECD jurisdictions come from the IMF World Economic Outlook released in April 2023, except for Gibraltar (Abstract of Statistics 2015 of the Statistics Office of Gibraltar), Isle of Man (the National Income webpage of the Official Isle of Man Government website) and Liechtenstein (UN National Accounts Main Aggregates Database).
Consumer price indices are from the OECD Main Economic Indicators database for OECD countries in most cases, and from the IMF International Financial Statistics database for Costa Rica (2022), Japan (2021, 2022) and for all non-OECD jurisdictions except for Gibraltar (Abstract of Statistics 2015 of the Statistics Office of Gibraltar), Kazakhstan in 2022 (Bureau of National Statistics) and Papua New Guinea (World Bank Consumer Price Index database).
Data on population are from the OECD Labour Force Statistics database for OECD countries and from the World Bank World Development Indicators for all the other jurisdictions.
Specific notes
Copy link to Specific notesThe "Other" category includes loans, land and buildings, unallocated insurance contracts, hedge funds, private equity funds, structured products, other mutual funds (i.e. not invested in equities, bills and bonds or cash and deposits) and other investments. Negative values (due to derivatives) have been excluded from the calculations of the allocation of pension assets. The Global Pension Statistics exercise gathers information on investments of pension plan assets in collective investment schemes (CIS) and the look-through of these investments in equities, bills and bonds, cash and deposits and other. Data on asset allocation in this Figure include both direct investments in equities, bills and bonds, cash and deposits and indirect investments through CIS when the look-through of CIS investments is available. In such case, the Figure shows the overall exposure of pension plan assets in the selected asset classes. When the look-through is not available, the Figure only shows the direct investments of pension plan assets in equities, bills and bonds, cash and deposits and other assets, and investments in collective investment schemes are shown in a separate category. Data are as at end-June 2021 for Australia and New Zealand Superannuation Fund, March 2022 for Canada's CPP reserves.
The charts are based on the annual investment rates of return reported in the statistical annex of the report (Annex B). Please refer to the notes of this statistical annex for more country or fund-specific notes. The annual returns are calculated over the period Dec 2021-Dec 2022 except for Australia (June 2021-June 2022), Canada's CPP reserves (March 2022-March 2023), Japan's GPIF (March 2022-March 2023), New Zealand Superannuation Fund (June 2021-June 2022).
The last 5, 10, 15 and 20‑year annual averages are calculated over the periods Dec 2017‑Dec 2022, Dec 2012‑Dec 2022, Dec 2007‑Dec 2022 and Dec 2002‑Dec 2022 respectively, except for Australia (starting and ending in June), Canada's CPP reserves (starting and ending in March of the following year), Japan's GPIF (starting and ending in March of the following year), and New Zealand Superannuation Fund (starting and ending in June).
The charts show the change in the proportion of assets invested in equities (x-axis) and bonds (y-axis) between end-2021 and end-2022 for pension plans in 35 OECD countries (dark blue dots) and 38 other non-OECD jurisdictions (light blue dots), and for 20 public pension reserve funds in the OECD area (grey dots). For readability purposes, the first chart does not show Türkiye (where investments in equity increased by 6.5 percentage points (pp) while investments in bonds declined by 25.4 pp) nor Georgia (+7.3 pp in equity, +27.4 pp in bonds). The simple average is calculated on all reporting OECD and non-OECD jurisdictions (first chart), and on all public pension reserve funds with available data (second chart).
Participation rates are provided with respect to the total working-age population (i.e. individuals aged 15 to 64 years old), except for Ireland (workers aged between 20 and 69).
Data on personal plans for Austria refer to PZV contracts. In Estonia, participation in the second pillar is still mandatory for people born on 1 January 1983 or later, but they can apply for an exemption from making contributions. Persons who opt out do still have account opened, but they are not counted in the data on second pillar members. Data for Hungary refer to pension fund members only. Data for Israel refer to new and general pension funds. For Italy, the coverage rate that is shown under voluntary occupational plans also covers individuals automatically enrolled in a plan. Data on mandatory plans for Norway refer to private and municipal group pensions. Data on voluntary personal plans in Poland refer to members in open pension funds. Data for the Slovak Republic refer to the second pension pillar only.
The high growth of contributions paid in Angola in 2022 relates to the closed pension fund of Banco Nacional de Angola. Data for Mexico refer to personal pension plans only. Data for Georgia refer to the second pension pillar only.
The chart shows the amount of assets at the end of each year, from end-2001 to end-2022, based on annual data. The total amounts of assets at the end of a given year are calculated on all the jurisdictions for which a value is available. The number of jurisdictions that the totals include may therefore vary over the years. Totals are expressed in current prices.
The size of the rectangles for pension plans is proportional to the amount of assets in jurisdictions within the same area (e.g. OECD), but not with pension plans in jurisdictions outside this area. Similarly, the size of the rectangles for public reserves is proportional to the amount of public reserves within the same aera but is not comparable with the size of pension plans. The "Other OECD" does not include Belgium for which the amount of assets in asset-backed pension plans (excluding reserves of unfunded/PAYG plans) is unavailable yet for 2022. The "Other non-OECD" category includes the following reporting jurisdictions: Albania, Angola, Armenia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Georgia, Ghana, Guyana, Indonesia, Isle of Man, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo1, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Macau (China), Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Serbia, Suriname, Uruguay, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Data for Canada refer to trusteed pension funds only. Data for Georgia refer to the second pension pillar only.
Benefits and transfers are for payments for retirement. Data for Finland refer to pension funds only. Data for Croatia refer to pension funds in charge of the accumulation phase and do not include contributions nor payments from pension insurance companies in charge of the pay-out phase. Data for Hong Kong (China) refer to MPF schemes only.
Benefits and transfers are for payments for retirement. Data for Austria refer to Pensionskassen only. Data for Canada, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Spain and Switzerland refer to pension funds only. Data for Denmark refer to benefits paid by pension funds and pension insurance contracts only. Data for Estonia refer to benefits paid by 2nd pension pillar plans only. Data for Italy refer to benefits paid from pension funds and book reserves only. Data for Türkiye refer to personal pension plans only. Data for Croatia refer to benefit payments and asset transfers from pension funds in charge of the accumulation phase. Data for Hong Kong (China) refer to MPF schemes only.
The chart shows the evolution of the liabilities (measured by the net technical provisions) of defined benefit (DB) plans at the end of each year. All liabilities of DB plans (instead of technical provisions only) are considered for Ireland and the United States. Data for Finland refer to DB plans in pension funds only. Data for Luxembourg refer to DB traditional plans under the supervision of the CSSF. Data for the Netherlands and Switzerland include all types of pension funds. Data for the United Kingdom come from the Purple Book 2022 published by the Pension Protection Fund and show the liabilities valued on an s179 basis (instead of net technical provisions). Liabilities for Hong Kong (China) refer to the amount of aggregated past service liability in DB ORSO schemes.
The chart shows the funding ratio of defined benefit (DB) plans at end-2021 and end-2022, and the difference in values between the two dates. This difference is expressed in percentage points (pp) and is shown in red (respectively green) when the funding ratio declined (resp. increased) between end-2021 and end-2022. The funding ratio is calculated as the ratio of total investment and net technical provisions for DB plans managed by pension funds using values reported by national authorities in the OECD questionnaire. All liabilities of DB plans (instead of technical provisions only) are considered for Ireland and the United States. Data for Finland refer to DB plans in pension funds only. Data for Luxembourg refer to DB traditional plans under the supervision of the CSSF. Data for the Netherlands and Switzerland include all types of pension funds. Data for the United Kingdom come from the Purple Book 2022 published by the Pension Protection Fund and show the ratio of assets and liabilities valued on an s179 basis (instead of net technical provisions). The 10.3 pp increase in the funding ratio of DB plans in the United Kingdom comes from market movements (6 pp), the new s179 basis from May 2021 (2.6 pp) and a change in the universe of DB plans (1.7 pp). Liabilities for Hong Kong (China) refer to the amount of aggregated past service liability in DB ORSO schemes.
"x" means that the type of fee does not exist or is not allowed in the country. All the fees are expressed in this Table as a percentage of total assets, even when fees are levied on salaries, contributions or investment income. These percentages are therefore not comparable with the maximum set by law when this maximum is expressed as a percentage of salaries, contributions or investment income. (1) Data refer to June 2022 for entities with more than six members and come from APRA Annual Superannuation Bulletin. (2) Fees are charged on qualifying income. Severance fund management fees are not included. (3) Data refer to the ROP only. (4) Data refer to voluntary private pension funds only. (5) Data refer to personal plans only. (6) Data refer to open pension funds only.
(1) Scope of the note Pension Funds in Figures (renamed Pension Markets in Focus - Preliminary data on pension funds) until 2022; and scope of the full report Pension Markets in Focus before the 2017 edition. (2) Scope of the OECD Global Pension Statistics exercise; scope of the note Pension Markets in Focus - Preliminary data since 2023; scope the full report Pension Markets in Focus since the 2017 edition until 2022. (3) Scope of this 2023 edition of Pension Markets in Focus.
Note
Copy link to Note← 1. This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244/99 and the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on Kosovo’s declaration of independence.