Beyond the more technical aspects, widely covered elsewhere, or even here, I will address two issues underlying the pension reform.
This reform is a failure because it failed to take into account the transformation of the individual return to retirement. Retirement has profoundly changed its meaning: that pension be given to those who can not (physically) for it to work not to fall into poverty, she became a third moment in life, experienced as a liberation. A growing number of people aspire to live, still young and free from the constraints of working life, a moment of fulfillment. This aspiration is strong in France, because the world of work is particularly painful for employees, for a variety of reasons, as many studies have shown, for example those of Philippon. The desire to enjoy life is reinforced by the desire to leave a world experienced as oppressive. That makes the commitment to retire at age 60 so much.
response, there are two possible attitudes. Either one considers, from an a priori normative implied that this aspiration is illegitimate, because the work, or GDP per capita in international comparisons, are virtues in themselves, or we think that individuals should be free to do whatever they wish, provided they bear the cost.
To say it in jargon, we must leave individuals free to maximize their intertemporal utility so. If a significant number of individuals wishing to retire at 60, it is possible for them: either by reducing their pension in proportion, either by increasing their contributions.
It is this possibility as assigned in particular the postponement of the legal age of retirement from 60 to 62 years. By increasing the importance of the mechanism of non-proportional discount, it makes it even more impossible this type of constrained optimization 1.
other words, this reform amplifies the inadequacy of the system to our contemporary society: it does not reflect this desire for individualization of pensions. That makes a point system, modeled on the Swedish system, so attractive: it allows, in effect, free individuals to realize, as they see fit, the type of journey of life they want, while maintaining balanced accounts of pension funds.
Alongside the issue of individualization, arises at the other extreme of the social, a collective issue, which refers to the struggle between different social groups on the wealth produced. The current system is, in principle, based on pure horizontal distribution: assets pay dues to former assets, which receive a pension based on their past contributions. So it is a corporate system, relating only to the professional world, which does not affect the distribution "vertical" distribution of wealth between social groups in our hierarchical society.
The extreme opacity of the system makes it difficult to gauge, but it is in fact not so. Notably, because this system does not take into account life expectancy differential between social groups. In 2002, 35, senior men had 47 years of life expectancy, which is 6 years more than the workers, and 34 years without disability, 10 years older than the workers. To the extent, moreover, workers are twice as likely as managers, it means that part of the executive retirement plan is funded by workers.
The current reform amplifies this mechanism. Indeed, by raising the legal age of retirement, it requires all those who started working before age 18 and a half longer than contributing 41.5 annuities taxed at all. A person who began working at age 14 will thus have two annuities more than the minimum required for the full rate: for two years, he will work "for nothing", at least not for him. And these people are almost all workers, who were apprentices, and yet die 6 years earlier than the executives.
These injustices have been widely reported. They form the heart of the claim of the unions. But it has failed to see the deeper meaning. It means that the reform provides, in part, the sustainability of the current system with a vertical distribution in reverse, laborers to executives.
The reform proposals of the left going in the opposite direction. They all suggest, in varying degrees, use of new levies, which fall most of the logic "corporate" contributions. Particularly taxing financial income. These proposals overestimate the magnitude of revenue that makes possible such taxes in relation to funding requirements. However, their meaning is obvious: it is the continuation of the current retirement age by a vertical redistribution of wealth. That is to say change the principle of the system.
The underlying issue is clear: as resources are depleted to the needs to finance appears to tensions between different social groups, who intend to finance the continuation of their lifestyle through the wealth produced by others.
is the absolute limit proposals the left. For the French system is sustainable, it must obtain acceptance of all people, especially the upper classes. These classes were conducted successfully in the Anglo-Saxon revolts against the tax levy of a welfare state that they felt that they did not benefit. As noted Sterdyniak: "A funded system that benefits only the rich poor is socially fragile middle class, many, are indifferent and the rich, influential, hostile."
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1. discount system is especially poorly understood. It works like notes (p.25) Thomas Piketty, in the manner of a double penalty. We calculate, in fact, primarily a reversion rate that is proportional to the number of annuities contributed. Then, if lack of annuities, in addition to the proportional decrease in the rate that implies, it adds a discount of -1.25% points at the rate of reversion per missing quarter, up 5 points per year. Age 65 only allows the mechanism to remove the discount, not that of proportionality in the reversion.
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