The effects of the coronavirus pandemic is a thing of great concern to many countries. For some countries, the measures put in place to cushion the effects of the pandemic is not yielding positive results as expected. Some countries will have to grapple with the effects of the pandemic for many years.
The elderly people constitute a large portion of the worst hit group. They fall into the category of risk groups because of their health fragility. In a bid to revamp the economy, certain adjustments are underway in some nations which may affect the retirement benefits.
The pension system of Iceland is ranked number one in 2021, in a comparison of 43 countries carried out for the Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index. The Netherlands and Denmark took the second and third spot while Finland is ranked 7th.
The Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index is an annual international comparison of pension systems conducted for the 13th time this year. For the second time, the CFA Institute is the Principal Sponsor of the Mercer Global Pension Index. The number of countries participating in the comparison of pension systems has increased year by year and this time 43 countries were involved. The comparison already covers about 65% of the world’s population. The comparison consists of three components: Adequacy, Sustainability and Integrity. In the comparison, coverage (40%) gets the most weight, followed by durability (35%) and transparency (25%).
While Finland’s total points improved slightly from last year’s survey, it slipped down two places in the ranking. All of the Nordic countries are in the top ten, with Norway in fifth place and Sweden in eighth place. The administration of Finnish pensions was once again deemed the most reliable and transparent in the world, but the country came in at 13th in terms of pension adequacy, Yle reported
According to Yle, “Comparing neighbouring countries is always interesting. Slightly surprisingly, Norway ranked last among the Nordic countries in sustainability. Less surprising was that Sweden ranked last among the Nordic countries in pension adequacy. Finland ranked fourth among the Nordic countries in both sub-indices,” Ismo Risku, Head of the Planning Department at the Finnish Centre for Pensions said in a Tuesday press release.
