Topical issues

The second corona year proved very favourable for pension investors, with an average nominal return on pension investments of 15.8 per cent and a real return of 11.9 per cent. The total assets rose to 256 billion euros. Good solvency safeguards pensions also in volatile global situations.

The winner of the 2021 Pro Gradu Award, Heidi Tuohimaa (M.Soc.Sc., University of Lapland), examined in her thesis the news coverage of earnings-related pension insurance companies and the related framework in Finland’s largest daily paper Helsingin Sanomat. Each year, the Finnish Centre for Pensions grants a Pro Gradu Award to a distinguished Master’s thesis.

Sweden, Finland and Denmark stand out with the highest effective retirement ages in a comparison of the Nordic countries and Estonia. Although Finns have postponed retirement markedly in the 2010s, they still exit the labour market at the youngest age. Icelandic, Norwegian and Finnish women spend the longest time in retirement.

How much has the retirement age of Finns and Nordic citizens increased? How does the level of education affect the labour market exit age in European countries? Attend our research webinar in English on 7 June 2022 at 14.00-15.15 EEST (13:00–14:15 CEST) to hear the latest research findings on this topic.

The Finnish Centre for Pensions has updated its short and concise booklets on earnings-related pensions for both wage earners and the self-employed. Both booklets are available in English, Finnish and Swedish. The booklets are available online and can easily be printed out as pdf files.

One third of 63–80-year-old retirees work or are interested in working while drawing an old-age pension, a recent study (in Finnish only) by the Finnish Centre for Pensions shows. Many retirees would like to work to get something meaningful to do. However, retirees find that their age might be an obstacle to working in retirement. The analysis based on a survey was published in the social policy journal Yhteiskuntapolitiikka.

The Finnish Centre for Pensions has been awarded a Certificate of Merit by the International Social Security Association (ISSA) within the ISSA Good Practice Awards programme. The certificate was granted to the Finnish Centre for Pensions for its web service that instructs employers on how to insure their workers in international employment situations.

The printed pension record posted to private sector workers contains information from only the most recent years. Data spanning the worker’s entire working history is available on the online pension record.

Most pension funds included in our comparison reached a real return of 10–20 per cent. The Swedish AP funds, part of the public pension system, performed particularly well, scoring highest in all compared categories. The year was favourable also for Finnish pension investors, particularly for Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company.

Partial old-age pensions have been selected mainly by wage earners with an average income. As the retirement age rises, the pension cutting effect of the partial old-age pension increases. The increasing cutting effect of early retirement is already showing in starting old-age pensions.