Topical issues

The tasks of the Finnish Centre for Pensions are extended regarding exemption procedures from applicable law in situations that comply with the EU regulations on social security and social security agreements. In the future, the Finnish Centre for Pensions will also issue decisions regarding exemptions for insuring work abroad.

Although the issue of stabilizing pension financing in Finland will not be acute until the 2050s, the alternatives to tackle the problem need to be addressed now. In addition to abolishing routes to early retirement, raising the retirement age or cutting pensions can be used to balance financing. Another alternative is to employ various automatic stabilizing mechanisms.

The Finnish pension policy objectives have been mainly successful. Pensioners’ economic well-being does not drop dramatically at retirement, and the income of low-income people even improves slightly. After retirement, incomes remain fairly stable. However, for some retirees, poverty is long-lasting. This is evident in a doctoral dissertation by Juha Rantala for the Universit of Turku. The research is based on longitudinal register data.

How well do citizens know the basics of the pension system, the pension benefits and how pensions are financed? What do people think about pensions in Finland and Sweden? These and other new facts will be presented at our online research seminar on 3 December.

Only 13 per cent of the Finns know how much they pay in pension contributions. 29 per cent underestimate their pension contribution rate. These are results revealed in a new survey on pension knowledge conducted by the Finnish Centre for Pensions.

The majority of older workers defer retirement and continue working in pace with the rising retirement age. Last year, around 45,000 Finnish citizens retired on an old-age pension.

The central labour market organisations have agreed on the private-sector earnings-related pension contributions for 2021. The Ministry of Social Affairs and health will confirm the grounds for the earnings-related pension contribution upon application by the earnings-related pension insurers.

The report on pension indicators is a compact information package on the state and projected outlook of earnings-related pensions. The report is directed at decision-makers and all interested in the outlook of pension provision. In this report, the most important indicators and key figures of pension policy are grouped into three categories by theme: length …

The Finnish pension system ranked fifth in the international Global Pension Index comparison published today. Finland dropped one notch as Israel surprisingly took a spot among the top 3. For the seventh time in a row, Finland’s pension system was ranked the most transparent and reliable pension system in the world.   The Mercer CFA Institute …

In the 2020, old publications of the Finnish Centre for Pensions have been digitalised and stored in Julkari, a shared open repository. Julkari includes already more than 1,200 publications published by the Finnish Centre for Pensions (mainly in Finnish and Swedish but many also in English).