This book highlights the importance of retirement security as a major policy concern of our time. A generation of "Baby Boomers" is on the verge of retirement, yet pension systems confront crushing challenges, and policymakers seek direction. The authors set their sights on employees' needs and expectations, employers' intentions and realizations, and policymakers' efforts to resolve the many challenges. Despite the fact that retirement systems face deep stresses exacerbated by volatile capital markets, poor corporate earning streams, weak macroeconomic performance, and international turmoil,...

Employees are being given more and more decisions to make with regards to their pension and healthcare plans. Yet increasing research in the social sciences shows that the decisions 'real' people make are not those of the thoughtful and well-informed economic agent often portrayed in economic research, but are often based on flawed information and made without a full understanding of their financial implications.
The contributors to Pension Design and Structure explore the assumptions behind commonly-held theories of retirement decision-making, and the consequences of the growing volume...

As the world's population lives longer, it will become increasingly important for plan sponsors, retirement advisors, regulators, and financial firms to focus closely on how older persons fare in the face of rising difficulties with cognition and financial management.
This book offers state-of-the-art research and recommendations on how to evaluate when older persons need financial advice, help them make better financial decisions, and to identify policy options for handling these individual and social challenges efficiently and fairly. This latest volume in the Pension Research Council...