Annotation

The development of funded pension systems is often presented as a solution to the problem of demographic aging, as it allows people to accumulate funds for the future without burdening subsequent generations, channel long-term savings into a growing economy, strengthen the contributory (and therefore earned) character of pension payments, and ensure more efficient management of social funds through competition in the savings market. After reviewing the various benefits claimed by proponents of pension capitalization, this article aims to assess the impact of this discourse on reforms undertaken in several countries facing population ageing, particularly in Europe, and then to conduct a detailed analysis of the actual consequences of pension system privatization in these countries and compare them with the promises formulated in the first part. A comparative study suggests that, with rare exceptions due to exceptional macroeconomic conditions, capitalization, as a solution to the problem of demographic aging, is no more effective than the pay-as-you-go system, since it involves a tax or levy on the real economy in any case, that is, on wealth generated primarily by current or future work. Furthermore, the study identifies various economic, social and political biases that may exacerbate the difficulties of the pension system's functioning in the event of large-scale capitalization in managing the fourth social risk.