Pension adequacy: toward a (more) complete picture of retirement income for the entire Dutch population

An important goal of a pension system is for people to be able to maintain their standard of living to a reasonable degree after retirement. Pension income must be adequate for that purpose. Pensions in the Netherlands are considered generous internationally, among others by Knoef et al. (2014) and the annual Mercer Pension Index (2022). However, that does not apply to everyone, and there are voices in society showing concern about current and future pensions. The recently launched interdepartmental policy research (IBO) “Pensions” has raised concerns about potentially inadequate pensions of specific demographic groups, such as first generation migrants and the self-employed. In light of this, it is important to comprehensively map households’ disposable income and assets based on objective data.

The detailed data now available for the entire Dutch population allows us to zoom in very specifically on potentially vulnerable groups, such as first and second generation migrants, single mothers, the self-employed, renters, and employed versus non-employed. Using a combination of sector data and income data, we can also look at groups that are relatively more likely to be in a heavy occupation.