Around the world, people nearing and entering retirement are holding ever-greater levels of debt than in the past. This is not a benign situation, as many pre-retirees and retirees are stressed about their indebtedness. Moreover, this growth in debt among the older population may render retirees vulnerable to financial shocks, medical care bills, and changes in interest rates. Contributors to this volume explore key aspects of the rise in debt across older cohorts, drill down into the types of debt and reasons for debt incurred by the older population, and review policies to remedy some of the financial problems facing older persons, in the US and elsewhere. The authors explore which groups are most affected by debt and identify the factors producing this important increase in leverage at older ages. It is clear that the economic and market environment is influential when it comes to saving and debt. Access to easy borrowing, low interest rates, and the rising cost of education have had significant impacts on how much people borrow, and how much debt they carry at older ages. In this environment, the capacity to manage debt is ever more important as older workers lack the opportunity to recover from mistakes.

Around the world, people nearing and entering retirement are holding ever-greater levels of debt than in the past. This is not a benign situation, as many pre-retirees and retirees are stressed about their indebtedness. Moreover, this growth in debt among the older population may render retirees vulnerable to financial shocks, medical care bills, and changes in interest rates. Contributors to this volume explore key aspects of the rise in debt across older cohorts, drill down into the types of debt and reasons for debt incurred by the older population, and review policies to remedy some of the financial problems facing older persons, in the US and elsewhere. The authors explore which groups are most affected by debt and identify the factors producing this important increase in leverage at older ages. It is clear that the economic and market environment is influential when it comes to saving and debt. Access to easy borrowing, low interest rates, and the rising cost of education have had significant impacts on how much people borrow, and how much debt they carry at older ages. In this environment, the capacity to manage debt is ever more important as older workers lack the opportunity to recover from mistakes.

Around the world, people nearing and entering retirement are holding ever-greater levels of debt. This volume explores key aspects of the rise in debt across older cohorts, drills down into the types of debt and reasons for debt incurred, and reviews policies to remedy some of the financial problems facing older persons, in the US and elsewhere.

Many new retirement-related opportunities and risks confront individuals and employers in the 21st century. Opportunities include the exciting prospects of living longer, living healthier, and living a more productive life than ever before. But the risks are also huge, including the challenge of setting an income goal and then saving enough for retirement, investing wisely in a time of financial turmoil, and planning carefully for a long period of time in retirement. What are retirement needs and how much will we need to save for old age? What is retirement becoming, especially in an era of downsizing and early retirement? What assets should we hold prior to and throughout the retirement period? How should we invest our pension assets, and how can education influence 401(k) plan saving? How important are employer-provided pensions and social security in protecting retirees against old-age poverty? And what special problems do minorities and women face? Forecasting Retirement Needs and Retirement Wealth draws on the latest information available on health, wealth, and retirement in America, to offer new perspectives on ways to support the expanding population of older citizens. As these novel paths to retirement emerge, paths that involve "bridge" jobs and gradual transitions through various states of employment, they force new thinking on the concept and process of retirement. Contributors explore the difficult problem of determining what resources people need during retirement and offer ways to think about how much to save for old age.Also in the Pension Research Council Publications series-- Prospects for Social Security Reform Edited by Olivia S. Mitchell, Robert J. Myers, and Howard Young ISBN 0-8122-3479-0 / Cloth Living with Defined Contribution Pensions Remaking Responsibility for Retirement Edited by Olivia S. Mitchell and Sylvester J. Schieber ISBN 0-8122-3439-1 / Cloth Positioning Pensions for the Twentieth-First Century Edited by Michael S. Gordon, Olivia S. Mitchell, and Marc M. Twinney ISBN 0-8122-3391-3 / Cloth

Reform and Responsibility in the Remaking of the Swedish National Pension System is a detailed study through Sweden's national pension system. With Sweden's recently reformed national pension system as the illustrative example, Nyqvist shows how new forms of governance effectively shift responsibility from state level to an individual level. She sheds light on how politicians, technocrats, and bureaucrats work to educate and foster the general public into responsible, hardworking, and financially literate citizens. This ethnographic example of how contemporary power works by way of new forms of governance, Reform and Responsibility in the Remaking of the Swedish National Pension System is an exploration into the art of governing of a large-scale governmental policy process

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