Netspar congratulates the winners of the Netspar Thesis Awards 2021: Marc Vahlenbreder (UM), Kristy Jansen (TiU) en het team van Martin Coppens (APG), Ilse van Eekelen (FNV), Roy van Nisselrooij (PGGM), Gilles de Vries (PGB) en Lieke Werner (Achmea) under the guidance of Roel Mehlkopf. The prizes of € 3.000 each were awarded during the annual International Pension Workshop to outstanding master, phd and Tias…

“Financial setbacks during the COVID-19 crisis negatively impact perceived adequacy of retirement savings” Many, but not all, self-employed people have been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis. However, this crisis not only affects the current financial position of these individuals but may also affect their ability to prepare for an uncertain future. This study explores the extent to which self-employed individuals without personnel experienced…

“The new pension contract affords the flexibility to tailor pension incomes to participants’ preferences” How will the collective investment strategy, allocation of total returns, assumed interest rate, and smoothing term affect pension incomes under the new Dutch pension contract? We examined the income effects at both the time of transition to this new scheme and in the longer run. We also compared the income…

“Seven recommendations for resolving issues” The consultation document on the Dutch Act on Future Pensions sets out a framework for the structure of, and transition to, the new Dutch pension system. It starts from the notion that social partners and pension providers will work together in an iterative process consecutively to change and implement their pension arrangements. The paper demonstrates that this process may…

“Spouses tend to work more to compensate for loss of household income” At the start of this century, the Netherlands had one of the world’s highest shares of workers receiving disability benefits in the insured population. Successive governments sought to reduce disability benefit claims. The last step in this process was the introduction of the Work and Income According to Labour Capacity Act (WIA)…

“Can income adjustments for all participants remain equal under the new Dutch pension scheme, even with smoothing of income adjustments over time and without any redistribution?” In the proposed new Dutch pension system, period-by-period fluctuations in income adjustments can be large. In the current defined benefit system, such fluctuations are contained by smoothing income adjustments over time and the adjustments made are equal for…

For her thesis, Melissa van Wingerden (23) has been awarded the Johan de Witt Thesis Award 2021 by the Royal Dutch Actuarial Association (Koninklijk Actuarieel Genootschap). Melissa was a Master’s student at Tilburg University and previously associated with Netspar, so we are proud of her achievement. We spoke to Melissa, who had just returned from Lapland and was still enjoying the interest sparked by…

“Increasing the state pension age hits lower educated the hardest, especially women” Between 2012 and 2024, the Dutch state pension age is gradually increasing from 65 to 67 years. After 2024, any further increase will be based on the population’s average life expectancy at age 65. However, this new policy fails to consider differences between educational groups and how easily they reach the higher…

“Current pension products not flexible enough for many of the selfemployed” About 40% of the self-employed in the Netherlands save too little for their retirement. Currently, they are more likely to invest in a house or put money aside in flexible savings than invest in a pension product. 48% of the self-employed don’t know how to calculate their annual contribution limit, which can deter…

On December 1, 2021, Netspar welcomes Stichting Shell Pensioenfonds (SSPF) and Shell Nederland Pensioenfonds Stichting (SNPS) as partners to the Netspar network. Through the collaboration, SSPF and SNPS are fulfilling their ambition to further improve the implementation of the pension schemes on the basis of the latest scientific insights, while making use of the knowledge and experience of leading experts. These are the network’s…