The role of the government in creating or enhancing the access to funded or unfunded pensions in the modern welfare state

Due to ageing, governments have put into place parametric pension reforms during the last two decades. Consequently pension systems have become extremely complicated. Whether statutory, occupational or personal all pension forms are remarkably difficult to understand in depth. Nonetheless this huge complexity people are connected to their national pension system due to the existing underlying pension concepts. Each country possesses thus a unique own national pension identity. Every national pension landscape is created by or composed of the various pension forms occurring and operating concurrently, resulting in an aggregate pension concept that is tailored to a specific national context. It is this uniqueness that makes transposition of reforms from one country to another so complicated or at least deeply problematic. Changes from PAYG to funded schemes are therefore far from self-evident to be successful.