When it comes to the amount of pension and the desired retirement date, self-employed and wage-employed people share the same ambitions. However, a Netspar analysis shows that the self-employed often lack, for a large part, a mandatory occupational pension. Also they save too little voluntarily, have non-substantial business equity and are vulnerable in the housing market. Therefore, they have a far lesser chance of...

From July 1, 2016, a new layered model for pension communication (‘Pension 1-2-3’) is mandatory for pension funds and insurers. This model should help to make the complex and comprehensive pension information easily accessible for participants. Does the current implementation meet the demands? Researchers Leo Lentz and Henk Pander Maat (both UU) analysed the websites of the 20 largest pension funds in the Netherlands…

This year’s Annual ESPAnet Conference in Rotterdam is sponsored by Netspar. On September 2, from 15.00 until 16.15, Netspar organizes a plenary panel titled ‘The future of pensions in Europe’. Netspar researcher Romke van der Veen (EUR) will chair this session; Casper van Ewijk (General Director Netspar) and Bernhard Ebbinghaus (University of Mannheim) are panel members; speakers are Kees Goudswaard (Leiden University) and Ellen Immergut…

The Netspar 2015 Annual Report is now available on our website. In addition to the financial report, it contains reviews by the Supervisory Board and the Netspar Board of Directors. We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who helped Netspar make a valuable contribution to a well-informed pension debate.

In this month´s newsletter: read more about our new website, call for papers Pension Day and the successful conference ‘End Game Toward a New Pension System’ that took place on June 16. Also you can download the latest papers en see events that take place the coming months.

At the request of the Dutch State Secretary of Social Affairs, Lans Bovenberg, Theo Nijman, and Bas Werker have outlined the advantages and disadvantages of various implementations of the assumed interest rate for the new Improved Defined Contribution Scheme Act (wet Verbeterde Premieregeling).

The desired freedom of choice in pensions is much smaller than polls suggest. How much freedom of choice workers should get, is important in the ongoing debate about the development of the Dutch pension system.

The book ‘Pensioen 2020’ (in Dutch) is being released on April 22. The book presents a collection of legal and economic essays on the trends in retirement financing.

The Foundation Board has appointed Hans Rademaker (CIO for Robeco) to the Supervisory Board of the Netspar Foundation with effect from March 1. His first term on the board will end on February 28, 2019. Robeco will appoint a successor to take Hans’s place on the Foundation Board.

The Netspar Thesis Awards were presented in Leiden during the International Pension Workshop. Netspar awards prizes for outstanding theses related to the Netspar research program.