Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T14:14:04.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Irish Citizens’ Attitudes to Pension Reform and Redistribution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2013

Yosr Abid  and
Cathal O'Donoghue
Yosr Abid
Affiliation:
Technical and Practical Assistance to Development, Tunisia E-mail: [email protected]
Cathal O'Donoghue
Affiliation:
Rural Economy Research Centre, Teagasc E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In order to assess people's preferences regarding potential reforms of the Irish state pension system, we surveyed a sample of the Irish adult population about their opinion on a selection of measures and issues related to the redistributive principles and parameters of the pension scheme. Even though very few people are well informed about the pension system, we observe a kind of homogeneity regarding perceptions about the way public pension benefits should be provided. As far as we know, this article represents the first attempt to elicit people's preferences for reforming the state Irish pension system using stated preferences techniques.

Keywords

Public pension reformpopulation ageingstated preferences
Type
Articles
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 2014 , pp. 203 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baroni, E and O'Donoghue, C. (2010) Poverty Impact of Social Welfare Pension Reform: An Analysis of the Proposals in the Irish Green Paper 2007, Combat Poverty Agency Working Paper Series 09/09, Dublin: Combat Poverty Agency.Google Scholar
Boeri, T. and Tabellini, G. (2005) Does Information Increase Political Support for Pension Reform?, CEPR Discussion Papers 5319, London: Centre for Economic Policy Research.Google Scholar
Boeri, T., Börsch-Supan, A. and Tabellini, G. (2001) ‘Would you like to shrink the welfare state? A survey of European citizens’, Economic Policy, 16, 32, 7–50.Google Scholar
Brooks, C. and Manza, J. (2007) Why Welfare States Persist: The Importance of Public Opinion in Democracies, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Brooks, S. (2005) ‘Interdependent and domestic foundations of policy change: the diffusion of privatization around the world’, International Studies Quarterly, 49, 2, 273–94.Google Scholar
Browning, E. K. (1975) ‘Why the social insurance budget is too large in a democracy’, Economic Inquiry, 13, 3, 373–88.Google Scholar
Bryan, C. J. and Hershfield, H. E. (2011) ‘You owe it to yourself: boosting retirement saving with a responsibility-based appeal’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141, 3, 429–32.Google Scholar
Carney, G. M. (2010) ‘Citizenship and structured dependency: the implications of policy design for senior political power’, Ageing and Society, 30, 2, 229–51.Google Scholar
Central Statistics Office (2006) Statistical Yearbook of Ireland 2006, Dublin: CSO.Google Scholar
Central Statistics Office (2009) Irish Life Tables No. 15: 2005–2007, Dublin: CSO.Google Scholar
Clery, E., Humphrey, A. and Bourne, T. (2010) Attitudes to Pensions: The 2009 Survey, Research Report 701, London: Department for Work and Pensions.Google Scholar
Connell, P. and Pringle, D. (2004) Population Ageing in Ireland, Projections 2002–2021, Report No. 81, Dublin: National Council on Ageing and Older People.Google Scholar
Corneo, G. and Grüner, H. P. (2002) ‘Individual preferences for political redistribution’, Journal of Public Economics, 83, 1, 83–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delaney, L. and O'Toole, F. (2006) ‘Preferences for specific social welfare expenditures in Ireland’, UCD Geary Institute Discussion Paper Series, GEARY WP8/2006, University College Dublin, Geary Institute, Dublin.Google Scholar
Delaney, L. and O'Toole, F. (2007) ‘Decomposing demand for public expenditure in Ireland’, Applied Economics Letters, 14, 15, 1091–5.Google Scholar
Department of Social and Family Affairs (2007) Green Paper on Pensions, Dublin: The Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Devroye, D. (2003) ‘“Who wants to privatize social security?” Understanding why the poor are wary of private accounts’, Public Administration Review, 63, 3, 316–28.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1985), Politics against Markets: The Social Democratic Road to Power, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Estes, C. L. (2004) ‘Social security privatization and older women: a feminist political economy perspective’, Journal of Aging Studies, 18, 1, 9–26.Google Scholar
Fong, C. (2001) ‘Social preferences, self-interest, and the demand for redistribution’, Journal of Public Economics, 82, 2, 225–46.Google Scholar
Galasso, V. and Profeta, P. (2002) ‘The political economy of social security: a survey’, European Journal of Political Economy, 18, 1, 1–29.Google Scholar
Ginn, J. (2006) ‘Pensions Policy’, Radical Statistics Briefing Paper, Radical Statistics, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Iversen, T. (2005) Capitalism, Democracy, and Welfare, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kay, S. J. (1999) ‘Unexpected privatizations. politics and social security reforms in the southern cone’, Comparative Politics, 31, 4, 403–22.Google Scholar
Kenworthy, L. and McCall, L. (2008) ‘Inequality, public opinion and redistribution’, Socio-Economic Review, 6, 1, 35–68.Google Scholar
Lynch, J. (2006) ‘Pension inequality and pension policy preferences in Europe: self-interest, policy feedbacks, or none of the above?’, Council for European Studies Working Paper, Columbia University, New York.Google Scholar
Meltzer, A. H. and Richard, S. F. (1981) ‘A rational theory of the size of Government’, Journal of Political Economy, 89, 5, 914–27.Google Scholar
Mulligan, C. B. and Sala-i-Martin, X. (1999) Gerontocracy, Retirement and Social Security, NBER Working Paper No. 7117, Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
National Pensions Board (1993) Final Report: Developing the National Pensions System, Dublin: The Stationery Office.Google Scholar
National Pensions Board (2008) National Report and Accounts 2008, Dublin: National Pensions Board.Google Scholar
O'Donoghue, C. (2002) ‘The generation game: all gain no pain? Ageing, intergenerational equity and generational accounts’, Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, 30, 65–107.Google Scholar
Pensions Commission (2005) A New Pension Settlement for the Twenty-First Century, Second Report of the Pensions Commission, London: The Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Pierson, P. (1994), Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Retrenchment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Prunty, M. (2007) Older People in Poverty in Ireland: An Analysis of EU-SILC 2004, Combat Poverty Agency Working Paper Series 07/02, Dublin: Combat Poverty Agency.Google Scholar
Ravallion, M. and Lokshin, M. (2000) ‘Who wants to redistribute? The tunnel effect in 1990s Russia’, Journal of Public Economics, 76, 1, 87–104.Google Scholar
Rehm, P. (2005) ‘Citizen support for the welfare state: determinants of preferences for income redistribution’, Discussion Paper SPII 2005–02, Social Science Research Center, Berlin.Google Scholar
Schwarze, J. and Härpfer, M. (2003) ‘Are people inequality averse, and do they prefer redistribution by the state? A revised version’, IZA DP No. 974, Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn.Google Scholar
Schwarze, J. and Häpfer, M. (2007) ‘Are people inequality averse, and do they prefer redistribution by the state? Evidence from German longitudinal data on life satisfaction’, The Journal of Socio Economics, 36, 2, 233–49.Google Scholar
Thoresen, V. W. (2008) ‘Stimulating stakeholder involvement’, in Tangen, D. and Thoresen, V. (eds.), Building Bridges, select papers from Bulgaria CCN conference, Hedmark University College, Hamar, Norway, pp. 26–30.Google Scholar
van der Heijden, E. C. M., Nelissen, J. H. M. and Verbona, H. A. A. (1997) ‘Altruism and fairness in a public pension system’, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 32, 4, 505–18.Google Scholar
van Groezen, B., Kiiver, H. and Unger, B. (2009) ‘Explaining Europeans’ preferences for pension provision’, European Journal of Political Economy, 25, 2, 237–46.Google Scholar