The pension profiles follow a standard schema. First, there is a detailed description of the rules and parameters of the pension schemes:
Qualifying conditions: pension eligibility (or “retirement”) age and years of contributions required to receive a pension.
Benefit calculation: the rules for each of the schemes making up the pension system, such as earnings-related schemes, mandatory private plans and resource-tested schemes.
Early and late retirement: the rules and conditions under which workers can retire early or continue to work beyond the standard retirement age.
Treatment of pensioners under the personal income tax and social security contributions, including any relief for pension income.
Values of all pension parameters and other relevant figures, such as minimum wages, are given in the national currencies as a proportion of average earnings.
A summary results table gives expected relative pension values, replacement rates and pension wealth at different individual levels of earnings for mandatory pension schemes. (See Chapter 1 of this report for the definition and measurement of the different indicators.) These are given in both gross and net terms (the latter taking account of taxes and contributions paid when working and when drawing the pension).
Summary charts show the breakdown of the gross relative pension value into the different components of the pension scheme (the first row of the charts). As far as possible, the same terminology is used to describe these schemes. The particular national scheme that is described can be found in the text of the pension profile. Some standard abbreviations are used in the legends of the charts:
SA: social assistance
Targeted: separate resource-tested schemes for older people.
Minimum: a minimum pension within an earnings related scheme.
Basic: a pension based only on number of years of coverage or residency.
Earnings-related: all public earnings-related programmes, including notional accounts and points schemes as well as traditional defined benefit plans.
DC: defined contribution, mandatory private plans.
Occupational: mandatory pensions, which can be provided by employers, industry-wide schemes, profession-based schemes or publicly.
The second row of charts shows the effect of personal income taxes and social security contributions on relative pension values and replacement rates, giving the gross and net values.
The charts use a standard scale to ease comparisons between economies: the scale for replacement rates runs to 125% while that for relative pension values runs to 2.5 times average earnings. In some cases, pension benefits exceed these maxima and so the measure has been capped at these levels.
