IAA Hosts Retirement Age Seminar

 

The Population Issues Working Group (PIWG) of the International Actuarial Association (IAA) hosted a retirement age seminar during the IAA Council and Committee meetings in Vancouver, Canada.

Members of the PIWG opened the seminar by presenting its draft report on actuarial, social and economic impacts of the changes in the eligibility age for retirement. Subsequently, experts in this field followed with presentations on:

• Living to 100… would Canadian pensions be sustainable?—Jean-Claude Ménard, Chief Actuary, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (Canada).
• Changes to the UK Retirement System—Chris Daykin, former Chief Actuary, Government Actuary’s Department (UK).
• Some Downsides to Increasing Eligibility Ages—Bruce Kennedy, Executive Director, BC College Pension Plan, BC Teachers’ Pension Plan, and BC Public Service Pension Plan (Canada).
• The Impacts of Increasing the OAS/GIS Eligibility Age on the Public and Public Services in Canada—Brad Underwood, Director, Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations, BC Ministry of Finance and Trustee, BC Teachers’ Pension Board (Canada).

The moderator of the seminar, IAA Immediate Past President Rob Brown, said, “I was pleased by the breadth of attendees. Not just IAA members, but practitioners and academics. This also added immensely to the quality of the discussion.”

The seminar attracted over 40 participants and included a wide-ranging discussion of the issues raised.

Assia Billig, PIWG Chairperson, said “The PIWG is very pleased by the positive response to our report. We are also grateful to seminar participants for providing valuable comments from both actuarial and policy perspectives. The incorporation of these comments in the final version will greatly improve its quality.”

This activity contributes towards achieving the IAA’s strategic objective to facilitate the coordination, use and expansion of the scientific knowledge and skills of the actuarial profession, to help enhance the scope, availability, and quality of actuarial services offered by individual members of its member associations.

To learn more about the work of the IAA on this topic, please contact the IAA Secretariat.

From left to right: Rob Brown, Bruce Kennedy,Chris Daykin, Jean-Claude Ménard, Brad Underwood, Assia Billig, Martin Stevenson, Sam Gutterman and Morteza Aalabaf