The pension benefit calculation

Financial rewards could be the most important incentives for older workers to stay in employment once the minimum retirement age is reached. This section will present the pension benefit calculation for several typical cases to get an insight on how current regulation treats longer work in terms of accrued pension benefit.

9 Croatia has a substantial number of pensioners below 60 years of age. At the end of 2007, they comprised around 20 percent of total number of retirees (including beneficiaries of disability and family pensions, but without military personal and war veterans) (HZMO, 2008a).

Calculations are done for persons insured in the first pillar who chose to retire at the beginning of 2008.¹⁰ The pension benefit calculation is prepared separately for male and female workers in three cases regarding pension eligibility and four cases regarding previous earnings. As for eligibility, we calculate the pension benefit for i) a person who retires after satisfying minimum conditions for early retirement, ii) a person with 5 more years of age and 5 more years of service when retiring (i.e. a person choosing to retire at the statutory minimum age) and iii) a person with 10 more years of age and 10 more years of service than in the case of early retirement. In this way, we can get a rough idea of benefit implications of continued employment. In some sense, it can illustrate the choice whether to retire early, to work until eligible to the statutory old-age pension or to continue working five more years after becoming eligible to the statutory old-age pension. We are aware of shortcomings in the static dimension of comparison, but think it can lead to some useful conclusions. As for earnings, we assume that a person is paid the same wage relative to the national average in the course of entire service period. Four cases are considered; life-time earnings in the amount of 60, 90, 100 and 200 percent of the national average.

The pension benefit in the Croatian PAYG scheme is calculated as:

Benefit = PF * APV * PP,

where

PP = AVP*Years of service*IF.

The PF stands for the pension factor, APV is the actual pension value and PP is the personal point. The pension factor depends on the type of pension; in the case of old-age pension, early retirement and disability pension it equals 1.00.¹¹ The actual pension value (APV) is a coefficient determined by the pension fund administration. In fact, it is the amount of pension for each personal point (PP). The APV is updated every six months in line with the indexation formula of Swiss-type (50 percent at price increase and 50 percent at wage increase). Personal points relate a worker’s contribution to the pension fund with his/her pension benefit. They are calculated by multiplying average value points (AVP) by the period of service and by the initial factor (IF). The average value points are determined on the basis of wages earned. A person’s wage in each calendar year is divided by the average wage in Croatia for the same calendar year and then averaged over the whole period used for the calculation of benefits (the best 37 years of earnings, as applied in 2008). The initial factor (IF) depends on the age of the insured person on the

10 Majority of current older workers in Croatia are insured only in the first PAYG pillar. In 2002, when the mandatory second pillar was introduced, workers below 40 years of age had to enter that scheme, while for those between 40 and 50 it was optional.

11 The pension factors for various types of disability and family pensions take values from 0.33 to 1.00.

day of acquisition of entitlement to a pension. The initial factor takes the value 1.0 for the old-age pension, disability pensions and family pensions, but it takes lower values in the case of early retirement. The initial factor is decreased by certain percentage (currently by 0.15 percent) for each calendar month of taking retirement before reaching the official retirement age (65 years for men and 60 for women).

The benefit calculation formula in the Croatian PAYG scheme is the same for men and women. However, we separate results for men and women to stress the difference in pension benefit that stems from different age at which men and women are eligible for early and statutory old-age retirement. Women can retire 5 years earlier than men, but in that case they have fewer years of service and consequently lower pension benefit.

Results are shown in Table 5.2 for men and Table 5.3 for women.

Another element of the pension system may be important for assessing benefits – the minimum pension. The minimum pension is calculated as the product of service years and the minimum benefit factor, which is defined for a year of service. In this way, the minimum pension is proportionally related to the years of service. The minimum pension is relatively low for those with a short career, but its influence is very important for those with a longer career. For example, for workers with 40 years of experience and life-time wage in the amount of 97 percent of the national average, the pension benefit will be approximately equal to the minimum pension.

Table 5.2 shows the absolute amounts of pension benefits and net replacement rates for men retired in 2008 in twelve various cases depending on age/years of career and life-time earnings. Pension benefit increases with age/career length and earnings. The net replacement rate increases with age/career length but decreases with earnings. The pension benefit relative to pre-retirement earnings is the highest for those with the lowest earnings. For example, a man with the life-time earnings in the amount of 60 percent of the national average should receive a pension benefit in the amount of 61 percent of his pre-retirement earnings in the case of statutory old-age retirement with 40 years of service. In a similar situation, a pension benefit of a person with earnings in the amount of 200 percent of the average earnings would be below 37 percent of pre-retirement earnings. Such a difference in the net replacement rate reflects a degree of solidarity in the Croatian pension system and it is mostly caused by the minimum pension regulation.

It also indicates that retirement means a greater relative loss of income to high-wage workers than to wage workers. Therefore, early retirement is more attractive to low-wage workers.

Table 5.2: Calculation of pension benefits in Croatia for men as of January 2008

Note: Pension benefit after taxation (assuming a person without dependent family members). Taxation affects only pension benefits above 3000 HRK.

Source: Authors’ calculations.

Table 5.3: Calculation of pension benefits in Croatia for women as of January 2008

Life-time earnings (in %

Note: Pension benefit after taxation (assuming a person without dependent family members). Taxation affects only pension benefits above 3000 HRK.

Source: Authors’ calculations.

The calculations of pension benefits shown in Table 5.2 are less clear in assessing financial incentives to retire later. Benefits in the case of early retirement are lower than in the case of retirement at the minimum statutory age. However, a penalty is a bit higher for a high-wage worker than for a low-wage worker. For a worker with pre-retirement earnings at the level of 60 percent of the average earning, the pension benefit in the case of early retirement amounted to 87.5 percent of the benefit in the case of statutory old-age, i.e. in the case of additional five years of working. The pension benefit for early retirement for a worker with pre-retirement earnings at the level of 200 percent of the average earning is 81.8 percent of the benefit in the case of “regular” retirement (HRK 4,129/3,380). The minimum pension means a higher replacement rate to low-wage workers. Although high-wage workers receive a higher pension benefit, it is taxed by the personal income tax and therefore they face a lower net replacement ratio.

Incentives to work beyond the minimum statutory retirement age seem unclear. Later retirement would bring a higher pension benefit, as shown in Table 5.2. However, another factor should also be taken into account beyond all the assumptions already made in our exercise. The Croatian pension system incorporates the Swiss-type formula for the valorisation of pension benefit (50 percent price up-rating and 50 percent wage up-rating). In a situation where wage increase could be substantially higher than price inflation, the net replacement rate in the moment of retirement will be lower in the future than today, other things being equal. Maybe such a situation could discourage one from later retirement.

Table 5.3 presents benefit calculations for women. Typically, women accumulate five years less of service than men and consequently receive a lower pension benefit. A female worker with life-time earnings at the level of the national average earnings retired at the minimum statutory retirement age could expect to receive around a 12 percent lower pension than her male counterpart (but, she will have five years of age and service less than men).¹² Conclusions regarding the incentives for women to retire earlier are practically the same as for men.

Net replacement rates expected for all those with earnings above the national average are rather low, below 50 percent even in the case of later retirement. Replacement rates for women are even lower, for about 5 percentage points. Such situation points to a substantial drop in welfare if one chooses to retire, as compared to the option of continued work. And this seems crucial – generally low replacement rates in Croatia could motivate many workers to work longer. This is surely not a kind of motivation that one would wish for in the pension system, but it is one of the most important factors explaining the increased participation of older workers in Croatia in the 2000s.

12 It could be added that women in Croatia earn around 12 percent less than men on average (Nestić, 2007), which additionally contributes to their lower pension benefits.

It should be stressed that the benefit calculations from Table 5.2 and 5.3 do not include permanent pension supplements that are given to all pensioners retired after 1998. For example, for those retired in 2008, the supplement reaches 25.9 percent of the regular pension benefit. Although enacted in 2007, the full implementation of the pension supplement is expected during 2008. However, the supplement is not included in our calculations as to better illustrate the situation in the last several years.¹³

However, it is questionable whether workers are aware of the results presented in such calculations. Usually, they are not familiar with detailed results, but with some general facts – such as the currently low net replacement rate and its declining trend over the last 15 years as well as the possible continuation of such a trend.

To conclude, we see that a low replacement rate in Croatia could be an important factor for keeping older population in work longer than before, or alternatively, for choosing some combination of work and retirement, sometimes unregistered.