The Chilean system of contributory pensions as locus of rivalry and of a new social compact

Sojo, Ana

Series

Download

Document in English (720.2Kb)

Date

2014-11

Abstract

This study assesses the contributory pension system in Chile and offers some recommendations for reform, from the viewpoint of social rights that generate expectations of satisfaction. The primary objective of any pension system is to provide income security to the elderly, and contributory pensions must reflect the savings achieved throughout working life in order to guarantee that, for similar levels of effort, similar and proportionate protection will be obtained.

Abstract

Executive summary .-- Introduction .-- I. The principles of social protection according to ECLAC, as a point of departure for the analysis to be undertaken .-- II. The fairness and rationale of the public-private mixes on social protection .-- III. The legitimacy of social protection systems: determinants of a favourable or negative public attitude .-- IV. The contributory pensions system in Chile is increasingly criticized as lacking democratic legitimacy and as failing to meet its primary objective .-- V. The contributory pension system administered by the AFP is losing its political legitimacy .-- VI. Some stylized facts on pensions in Chile, from a joint vision of contributory and non-contributory subsystems .-- VII. The great debate: low replacement rates for individually capitalized pensions, their determinants, and some of their collateral effects .-- VIII. Given the failure to fulfil the promises of pension coverage and quality, the State AFP could represent a strategy of gradual change through layering and transition .-- IX. Toward a not-for-profit contributory system of individual accounts .-- X. In the face of demographic shifts and the inadequacy of parametric changes: interactions with care provisions as the framework for social protection policies .-- XI. Corollary: the need for action against a pension system with distorted objectives.