Working longer leads to much discussion. It improves the sustainability of public finances, but not all people are able to work until they reach the state pension age. More flexibility in the transition from working life to retirement can have positive effects on health, (work) satisfaction and sustainable employability. The Netspar project group “Flexible retirement” (Flexibel met pensioen) analyzed the options and bottlenecks for…

Netspar has secured funding for a new program term and is launching an ambitious research agenda for 2019-2023 – “Netspar NexT” – with the support of its partners. The new program will highlight three core themes affecting old age, pensions, and retirement in the Netherlands: the transition to a new Pension Agreement, the ongoing development of financial life cycle planning, and forecasts regarding the…

Netspar congratulates the winners of the Netspar thesis awards 2019: Lu Yi, Marianne Tenand and Tias contenders Maarten de Haas, Steven Jonk, Herialt Mens and Semih Eski. The prizes of € 3.000 each were awarded during the annual International Pension Workshop to outstanding master, phd and Tias theses within the Netspar research program. All nominated papers were assessed on academic quality, relevance to the…

The Netspar Board of Directors recently awarded two theme project applications grants of €250,000 each, following scientific validation by the Scientific Council and a positive recommendation by the Partner Research Council. This brings the total awarded to long-term research in 2019 to 1 million euros. About the research: Developing and Testing a Model of Inertia in Retirement Decisions It is well known that most…

To what extent does the existing pension system still fit organically into our changing society? As individual responsibility and risk assumption grow, it is almost impossible to avoid having to offer more options. Yet this raises the question of what role customization and freedom of choice might play in providing people optimized financial planning for their entire life course. What is the potential impact…

The Netspar Board of Directors recently awarded grants of €250,000 each to two applications for theme projects, following scientific validation by the Scientific Council and a positive recommendation by the Partner Research Council: The Causes and Consequences of Retirement: A Sociological Perspective (Kène Henkens, NIDI) The Effectiveness of Decision Aids in Pension Communications and the Role of Literacy (Hans Hoeken, Leo Lentz, and Adriaan…

At the request of Netspar partners, an inventory was made of the impact data science and big data might have in the pensions domain. Using that as a starting point, a Netspar project group then outlined a number of future scenarios and two possible courses for pension providers to take. The group’s initial findings were presented at the conference on Big Data and Retirement…

On October 4, the Dutch National Institute for Budget Information presented an advise to make make it compulsory for self-employed people to save for supplementary (second pillar) retirement. In particular, (former) self-employed workers now face financial shortage at the end of their career. The Nibud report is based, among others, on Netspar’s research. Therefore, here is an overview of the research in question and…

With a future state pension age of 70, the proportion of people unfit for work among future 65- to 69-year olds is likely to be somewhat higher than among the current 60-64 year olds. However, this increase is expected to remain limited. On the basis of national and international literature, the development of the healthy life expectancy seems to follow the development of the…

A more flexible interpretation of pension benefits offers advantages. People who are limited in their financial choices benefit most from schemes that help to better attune pension income to to their personal life situation. Opposite these advantages are disadvantages that somewhat limit the gains of more flexibility. More flexibility can lead people to bad financial choices more quickly. This is shown by a Netspar…