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The ESA 2010 pension table: An integrated view on the functioning of pension systems in Spain

Doc: 01/2019

The inexorable impact of the population ageing, the peculiarities of pay-as-you-go pensionschemes of public systems and the increasing role played by private systems in developedsocieties emphasize the need of a harmonized measure of accrued –to date pension rights andobligations in them as one the main priorities for the statistical systems. Current national accountsstandards (SNA 2008 and ESA 2010) already include guidelines for the registration in their systemsof all employment related private pension obligations/rights regardless of whether they aresystems with or without constitution of reserves. In addition, they propose the recording of allpension schemes, including contingent obligations/rights accrued in public systems in asupplementary table. The supplementary table on accrued-to-date pension entitlements in socialinsurance will allow us to see the evolution of all pension rights stocks and the flows that motivatetheir variations, regardless the fact they are non-contingent financial assets/liabilities for thehouseholds/pension managers or not. Both the objectives and data compiled in the table presentobvious conceptual difficulties and require a high level of expert knowledge in the financial,insurance and actuarial fields. Thus, in the Spanish case, the close collaboration with externalagencies from various areas has been a basic component of the project, as a clear example ofinter-institutional cooperation towards the highest standards of quality in official statistics. Inaddition, a highly flexible and adaptable SAS® software (PensINE) has been developed by INE forthe actuarial estimation of accrued to date pension obligations/rights in public defined benefitschemes, which brings together a large part of the fruits of this collaboration. Finally, a didacticdissemination of the pension tables results as a tool for analysing the functioning of nationalpensions systems but not as a measure of their future sustainability is a challenging issue that theEuropean Statistical System and other international organizations face nowadays.

Palabras clave / Key words: Pensions, national accounts, ageing

The ESA 2010 pension table: An integrated view on the functioning of pension systems in Spain (Pdf 1245 KB)
Sixto Muriel de la Riva, Carlos J. Valero Rodríguez, Andrés García Carreira