Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.3935/rsp.v22i3.1307
Lost between Sustainability and Adequacy: Critical Analysis of the Croatian Pension System’s Parametric Reform
Ivana Vukorepa
orcid.org/0000-0001-6759-9992
; Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Abstract
Nowadays, when faced with aging societies, family structure changes, labour market transformations, non-standard employment arrangements, shadow economy, financial and economic crisis, many are worried about the two basic issues: pension systems’ financial sustainability and benefit adequacy (both short-term and long-term). Therefore, almost all countries in the world made some changes to their pension systems. The situation is even more aggravated in countries with high budget and pension system’s deficits, unfavourable dependency ratios, long-term negative natural increase rates, low employment and high unemployment rates. Unfortunately, Croatia suffers from all these problems. Therefore Croatian pension system has undergone many reforms: one systemic reform (from 1998 to 2002 which resulted in the establishment of the three-pillar pension system), and several parametric reforms, the last one encompassing all three parts of the pension system (2013-2015). The purpose of the paper is to provide legal analyses of this last parametric reform in the light of sustainability and adequacy concerns with some inevitable reminders of the previous reform solutions. The author reveals many inconsistencies and lack of prudence in legislator’s approach, which in the long-term potentially endangers both the financial sustainability and benefit adequacy. Moreover, numerous and frequent legislative changes coupled with the existence of many groups of privileged pensioners raise further concerns regarding predictability, stability, efficiency and fairness of the pension system as well as trust in the national government. Furthermore, the author warns that only part of the solutions lies within the pension system itself (through more thoughtful adjustments). Those changes should be complemented by other strategies outside the pension policy (e.g. within the health care system, tax system and labour market regulations).
Keywords
Croatia; pensions; pension reform; sustainability; adequacy
Hrčak ID:
149857
URI
Publication date:
17.12.2015.
Visits: 3.541 *