Description: Planning for retirement in North America has become much more challenging as the defined benefit system has declined. We must take more responsibility for ourselves. As we plan, many societal forces affect us. Both men and women are disadvantaged because Americans in particular are not very good savers. While pension plans and Social Security, or CPP/QPP/OAS in Canada, generally use the same formulas for men and women, often the results are different. This article focuses on the challenges women face in retirement.

Description: R. Evan Inglis, the new chairperson of the SOA/AAA Joint Pension Finance Task Force, shares with us his view of the important pension finance issues facing actuaries and the task force’s vision of how pension finance can strengthen the actuarial profession.

Description: Musings over the evolution of the Editor role “paperless” correspondence recent changes in the Pension Section Council and its Teams SOA support of the Pension Section and a sneak peek at possible action steps in response to the survey of Pension Section members and other retirement practitioners.

Description: In this article, Pension Section Council chairperson Marcus Robertson reviews 2009, looks forward to 2010, thanks departing council members and welcomes incoming members.

Description: A global perspective on risk and pensions, from a different perspective.

Description: In this article the editor previews the issue.

Description: Article from Pension Section News, May 2007, No. 64, discusses outcome-oriented approach to defined benefit investing. Instead of focusing on market indices, the focus is on achieving a specific real-world outcome for the defined benefit plan.

Description: Protecting oneself in older age from risks is the sine qua non of retirement planning. But far too many people don’t approach retirement (or retirement planning) well. From a policy perspective, we know about half the senior population will have some sort of long-term care event. We need to recognize that long-term care risk is a component not just of aging but of retirement. Placing long term care solutions in the retirement space is critical to reaching the bulk of the population. Combined with the additional element—recognition of risk—this would be both a powerful protection but also a natural one for individuals to understand.

Description: This article discusses how much should defined-benefit pension plan assets be and should actuaries decide the answer to this question?

Description: This article offers a critique of explanatory text and principal economic and demographic assumption tables from the 2003 Annual report of the Board of Trustees of the OASDI Trust Fund. From Pension Section News, March 2004, Issue No. 54.