Age of pension eligibility, gains in life expectancy, and social policy

In doing so we give special attention to possible increases in the age at which people are eligible to receive benefits and consider the impact on the size of the future labour force, the changing ratio of population of working age or labour force to retired population, and the pension contribution rate that would be required to maintain the publicly financed component of the retirement income sec [...] In any event, pension reform is high on the political agenda, with commissioned reports received in 2008 by the Governments of Alberta and British Columbia (jointly) and Ontario, and, in 2009, by the Governments of Canada and of Nova Scotia8 and the federal government’s public consultation on the retirement income system.9 However the focus of those reports is on how to deal with apparent shortcom [...] The model with age of eligibility set at 65 is an oversimplification of the Canadian system, but captures its main features in respect of the effects of population aging on pension costs, and the possibilities for influencing those costs by choice of the age of eligibility. [...] Finally, when the adjustment reflects gains in life expectancy, in AE5, the 11 increase in the age of eligibility is less, and hence the increase in the eligible proportion, to 19.9, is somewhat greater. [...] That is shown in Figure 1. As would be expected, the sooner an increase in the age of eligibility takes effect, and the larger that increase, the greater the impact on the number eligible.