Introduction

Pension systems principal objective is to provide means for life to people who aren't able to work anymore due to their advanced age. Defining the financial and labour market situation of older people, pension system becomes an institution that determines to a high extent life of this social category.

Therefore, what should be in the centre of attention of pension economists is the financial situation of older people and the way the whole system influences their life. Polish reformed pensions are indeed being widely discussed, but from a very different point of view. In public discourse and in economic expert circles much consideration is given to their role for public finance and their internal financial organization, yet not to how the pension institutions influence older people in Poland. Similarly, major reason that stood behind the reform was a financial, macroeconomic one – to prepare the pension system to be financially sustainable in the face of society ageing. Nevertheless, such a radical systemic change should be supported with a complex vision of old age. Having macroeconomic implications of pension system in mind, an individual context should be the most important one. However, an analysis of official documents of 1999 reform suggests that there was no such explicit vision (Office of the Government Plenipotentiary for Social Security Reform 1997).