AxeI Borsch-Supan and Meinhard Miegel The provision of retirement income is a dynamic system
that needs to be adapted constantly to the ever changing economic and societal environment.
Sometimes incremental adaptations suffice sometimes however larger reform steps are
necessary. We see this evolutionary process both through history and across countries. Over and
again societies are confronted with new challenges not the least with respect to old age
social security. At this juncture of history almost all industrialized countries face rapid
population aging and need. to adapt their pension systems to this historically unprecedented
demographic change. The six countries in this study (Chile Germany Great Britain the
Netherlands Switzerland and the United States) have responded very differently to this new
challenge. This is the point of departure for this book. Why did the countries respond so
differently? What can we learn from each other? It is not the point of this book to provide a
universally optimal solution to the pension problems caused by population aging. The six
countries are simply too different in terms of their demographic and cultural and in
particular in terms of their historical and economic backgrounds. However since national
discussions tend to be surprisingly narrowly focussed even in times of globalization there is
much to learn by looking over the neighbor' s fence. And since some countries have reformed
earlier than others we even have the benefit of quite a few trials and errors in one country
from which all other countries can learn.
