The Second International Congress on “Nationalism, populism and identities: contemporary challenges”, organized by the University of Oxford and the Fide Foundation (legal-economic think-tank based in Spain), was held on April 4, 5 and 6, 2022, at Jesus College (Oxford). On that occasion, FIAP was invited to participate in the Congress with its standpoint on the impact of populist policies on the financing of South American pension systems.

After several months of work, we are pleased to share with you the final document published by Fide, with a compilation of all the papers prepared by the different professionals and analyzed and discussed in depth at said Congress.

In the chapter on pensions contained in the final document, it states that:

1.- The individually funded systems operating in Latin America are better able to cope with demographic changes than the PAYGO pension systems, in terms of long-term sustainability.

2.- The individually funded systems, unlike the PAYGO systems, have brought enormous benefits from the perspective of pensions, economic growth, and the corporate governance of the companies they invest in.

3.- Nonetheless, like all pension systems, the individually funded systems need to adjust their operating parameters to respond to the social, demographic, economic and employment realities in which they operate. These changes are often hindered by the political and institutional realities of countries, further aggravated by the recent Covid 19 crisis, and the ideologization of the public debate, imbued with populism and emotionalism, which has led to some decisions that defeat the purpose of improving workers’ pensions.

4.- To improve workers’ pensions, it is imperative to carry out a series of reforms, such as: strengthening non-contributory social protection networks for workers with low savings capacity; increasing workers’ savings in their individual accounts; and updating or indexing the retirement age in accordance with the increase in life expectancy, among other measures.

Download the final report here

Download the offprint of the chapter on pensions here