Topical issues

As of September 2021, Sweden starts to pay a new benefit, an income pension complement. The benefit may be granted to old-age pension recipients with a long working life and a small pension. The complement is paid also to Finland.

The new department International Services launched its operations at the Finnish Centre for Pensions at the beginning of the year. The department issues decisions on social security for work abroad, handles claims for pensions from abroad, offers pension advice, calculates pensions and offers customer service. Focusing all international services into one department generates more efficient services.

Claiming a partial old-age pension is associated with parental lifespan, a recent study by the Finnish Centre for Pensions has shown. The shorter their projected life expectancy, the more likely it is that people will claim a partial old-age pension.

Every second Finn supports increasing employment-based immigration if our pension system is to be amended due to its financing. The Finns strongly oppose pension cuts. This is evident in the latest Pension Barometer conducted by the Finnish Centre for Pensions.

Pocket Statistics, published by the Finnish Centre for Pensions, includes central statistical data, time series and info-graphics on pensions. The most recent figures date back to year-end 2020.

A total of 1.3 million persons draw an old-age pension. One in four of them are baby boomers. In 2020, around 42,000 persons retired on an old-age pension, down by five per cent compared to 2019. Earnings-related pensions were paid to an amount of nearly 30 billion euros.

On average, the net income of a person retiring from employment is 79 per cent of the net income during the active period. A new study by the Finnish Centre for Pensions shows that the change in net income at retirement has remained unchanged since the early 2000s.

Despite the corona pandemic, Finnish investment assets rose by 4.8 per cent to 223 billion euros. In the review period 1997-2020, the average return of the Finnish pension insurance investors has exceeded the baseline projections. Read more about the allocation of Finnish pension investments in the English Summary of Työeläkelehti (2:2021), published on 7 June …

Each year, the Finnish Centre for Pensions grants a Pro Gradu Award to a distinguished master’s thesis. This year the award goes to Jonathan Strömberg from the University of Oulu. His thesis examines the financial sustainability of the Finnish occupational pension system, comparing the Finnish, Dutch and Danish pension systems.

The majority of the pension funds in our comparison reached a real return of 5–10 per cent despite the exceptional year. The clearly highest return, around 20%, was made by the Swedish buffer fund AP6 that invests only in equities. The Finnish pension investors weathered the peculiar year with varying degrees of success.