Despite the reform that came into effect in September, France’s rating has fallen in the Mercer ranking of the “best” retirement systems. In the 2023 edition, France occupies 25th place among 47 countries studied, which places it “just below the median and, therefore, degrades its ranking compared to the previous year,” says Marina Rouxel, responsible for the offer of Mercer France employment-retirement transition. .
The human resources consulting company’s ranking analyzes each year the characteristics of the retirement systems of several countries that cover 64% of the world’s population. Three criteria are analyzed: the standard of living of retirees (system performance), the long-term financial balance of the pension plans (viability) and transparency to active people/retirees about the operation of the plans (integrity). ). . ).
If France is at the foot of the podium according to the sole criterion of performance (84.5/100), it falls even further behind in the criteria of viability (40.9/100) and integrity (54.4/100). So much so that her overall score stands at 61.7/100, compared to 63.2 last year. A decline “due to particularly unfavorable demographics and a too low employment rate for older people.
Holland in the lead
France is thus far behind the Netherlands (85/100), which dethrones Iceland (83.5/100) at the top of the classification.
Denmark, for its part, maintains its third place (81.3/100), while Argentina occupies the last position (42.3/100).
If we analyze criterion by criterion, Portugal rises to the top of the ranking in terms of standard of living of retirees (86.7/100). Iceland stands out for the viability of its system (83.8) and Finland for the integrity criterion (90.9). In contrast, “the systems with the lowest values for all of these subindices are South Korea for performance (39.0), Austria for viability (22.6), and the Philippines for integrity (25.7),” Mercer says.
Generally speaking, the firm notes that “declining birth rates have put pressure on several economies and pension systems in the long term, negatively affecting sustainability scores in countries such as Italy and Spain.” “However, several Asian systems, including mainland China, South Korea, Singapore and Japan, have undertaken reforms to improve their scores in the past five years.”
Source: BFM TV
