Les comptes notionnels les femmes et lItalie Antoine

Les comptes notionnels, les femmes et l’Italie Antoine Bozio, Institute for Fiscal Studies

NDC and the labour market in Italy • Two papers from Tito Boeri – “Pension Reforms and Women Retirement Plans” (joint with Agrar Brugiavinni) – “Is Social Security Secure with NDC? ” (joint with Vincenzo Galasso) • Common theme – NDC reform in 1995 in Italy – Are pensions of women and unemployed at risk? – Is labour market reform a necessary complement to the NDC pension reform? • Main proposal – A unique labour contract should address the problem of dual labour markets in Italy and elsewhere

“Pension Reforms and Women Retirement Plans” • Background – Women have more “gap years” than men – NDC reform in 1995, from a retributive system towards a contributive system • Empirical method – Dependent variable = expected retirement age – Explanatory variables = X, gap years, Δ(Peak value) • Results – Gap years are significant for women – Δ(Peak value) is higher for men Þ Higher retirement elasticity of men? Þ Binding eligibility constraints explain why women are less reactive to changes in pension rules than women?

Comments • Low retirement elasticity of women? – Interesting result given the general result on higher labour supply elasticity of women during life – Other similar results on French data (Bozio 2006, 2010) • Why is the case? – Authors suggest eligibility constraints – Is there evidence that it is really eligilibity constraint that explains lower “retirement elasticity” of women? – Other possible explanations (joint decision in household, income effects etc. )?

“Is Social Security Secure with NDC? ” • The paper – Italy suffers from a dual labour market, with increasing share of fixed term contract, with higher probability of unemployment spells – NDC reforms has increased the link between contributions and pensions => Those who will suffer from these unemployment spells will also suffer very reduced pensions • Main analysis – NDC system is fine in itself – Interaction of NDC and dual labour market poses problem – Unique labour contract could resolve the dual labour market and thus solve the issues with pensions

Comments • Italian NDC is one of a variety – Italian reform has not implemented many safeguards for career breaks – Very different from the Swedish brand of NDC – Even without a dual labour market, this is a problem • Does NDC really makes the dual labour market worse – for a given level of redistribution? – Pension rights are accrued since the start of the career – Pension contributions are more valued by younger workers => increased labour supply – Lower incentives to set seniority wages • Dual labour market does not need NDC to be problematic