GENEVA: Nearly half of the world’s elderly receive no pension, while many of those who do receive too little and are widely seeing their benefits slashed, the International Labour Organisation said yesterday.
A full 48 percent of people over retirement age worldwide do not receive a pension, the UN’s labour agency said in a report. And “for many of those who do receive a pension, pension levels are not adequate,” it said.
The result, according to study author and head of ILO’s Social Protection Department Isabel Ortiz, is that “the majority of the world’s older women and men have no income security”.
After a lifetime of hard work, these people “have no right to retire and have to continue working as long as they can, often badly paid and in precarious conditions,” she said in the 150-page study on social protection for older persons.
The report, which looked at pension systems in 178 countries, found that middle- and low-income countries have in recent years been rapidly expanding pension coverage through a mix of public, tax-financed and private contributory systems.
More than 45 countries have reached 90 percent pension coverage and more than 20 developing countries, including China, have basically achieved universal pension coverage, it said.
Globally, countries on average spend 3.3 percent of their gross domestic products on pensions for people above retirement age, generally set around 65.
Cuts to pension benefits, along with persistent unemployment, lower wages and higher taxes “have contributed to increases in poverty or social exclusion, now affecting 123 million people in the European Union, or 24 percent of the population,” the report said. AFP
