Ageing and Public Pensions in Spain. Do We Face a Problem of Macroeconomic Sustainability?

Sol Minoldo, CONICET
Julio Pérez Díaz , CSIC

As in many other populations, the age structure of the Spanish population has changed in last decades, as part of the ageing process. This new age structure, as well as the new demographic dynamics that produce it, are usually designated as part of an economic "problem", especially for sustainability of pensions systems. In this context, some reforms in social security which restrict protection are usually proposed. As the elderly is every day a larger part of populations, it implies going forward scenes with every day more people in poverty vulnerability. Faced the social relevance of these orientations of social policy, it is worth inquiring and review the idea of relation between ageing and an economic challenge. By critically analyzing the limitations of the indicators traditionally used, we propose another approach to elucidate the material impact of aging. This approach is an alternative way to use the contributions of the project National Transfer Accounts to generational economy. The findings show that the aging challenge in Spain is not so related to economic sustainability but to a distributive problem: the imperative to adapt protection institutions to change in the composition of consumption by age.

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 Presented in Session P2. Poster Session Ageing, Health and Mortality