Romanian pensions system at a glance: some equity comments

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to analyse the equity issues of the Romanian pension system. The analysis is carried out at two levels: at the nationwide level, aimed at identifying the welfare implications of recent reforms adopted by the Romanian government on the unitary system of pensions, and at the regional level, where we try to identify differences and similarities across counties with respect to nominal and real average benefits received by pensioners. The conclusions of the analysis show that the new pension law ended up with an increase of the average benefit for high pensions, while low benefits remained practically the same as they were before the reform. At regional levels, in most of the counties the average real pension (indexed by the cost of living) is above the nominal one.

Keywords:

• Pension system
• equity
• cost of living
• welfare
• Romania

JEL classification:

• H55
• D63
• H75

Acknowledgement

This work was financed/co-financed by Danubius University from Galati.