Research group This component of the FairTax research project will critically evaluate the implications of demographic ageing across the EU and in selected OECD countries. Researchers will look at the employment, social security, tax, and pensions policies introduced to address this phenomenon with a particular focus on fiscal sustainability, equality, and consolidation across the EU.
Identified as a major societal challenge for Europe and other OECD economies, demographic ageing has highlighted both elements of vulnerability in existing fiscal systems and the new social risks that future tax policies faces. As an effect of economic crisis, many senior citizens in member states have suffered from recent budget-cuts. In Ireland, previous proposed cuts in pensions did lead to massive demonstrations, which points to a potential risk of future large-scale intergenerational social conflicts.
Through analysis of policy documents, interviews and focus groups with citizens, stakeholders and experts across Europe, this part of the FairTax project will present options for policies to make pensions systems fair and sustainable into the future. Researchers will produce a report that will identify best practices, accompanied by preparation of a fiscal policy tool-kit with guidelines for best practices for individual EU countries. The goal is to identify policy recommendations on cross-national consolidation of policy approaches to pension provision that avoid tax inequalities and secure individuals' financial and governments' fiscal sustainability into the future.
J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics, and Irish Centre for Social Gerontology,
National University of Ireland, Galway
E-mail: emer.mulligan@nuigalway.ie
Dinali Wijeratne, Postdoctoral Researcher
Irish Centre for Social Gerontology,
National University of Ireland, Galway
E-mail: dinali.wijeratne@nuigalway.ie
