Pension System in Southern European Countries – Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

This paper reviews the pension systems of  Portugal  and explores comparative analysis  with other Southern European (SE) countries and tries to show responses to the new political and economic realities in recent years. According to a review of pension systems in SE countries, this paper summarizes and highlights the main features and trajectories of the development of social security systems in four countries (Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain) that are dealing with the challenges of these systems. It also examines the deeper challenges for the future that are posed by demographics and suggests some emerging proposals with respect to the architecture of reformed systems.  Comparative analysis of this region the challenges still remain unchangeable last decades. According to crucial issues raised in the pension system of SE,   to the respond of these challenges the author   is forming several approaches with recommendations and proposals for solving the problem in pension system.This paper reviews the pension systems of the region and explores comparative analysis based on historical brief background and tries to show responses to the new political and economic realities in recent years. It summarizes and highlights the main features and trajectories of the development of social security systems in four countries (Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain) that are dealing with the challenges of these systems. It also examines the deeper challenges for the future that are posed by demographics and suggests some emerging proposals with respect to the architecture of reformed systems. In the future  as for the next  research  we are planning to work on the individual pension models based on PROST program (The World bank )  as  options simulation toolkit for each countries  separately in Southern Europe. This study will reflect a developing process of the fully funding pension scheme and its implication on social-economic factors. The structure of the paper is the following- Section 2 discusses the common socio-economic indicators of the SE countries, focused in particular on the aging process. Section 3 details the pension systems of these four SE countries: Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. This section also highlights the major reforms carried out by their governments over the last decade. Finally, Section 4 consists of conclusion.

Keywords: aging, pension, retirement age,  pension spending.