Issue, No.36 (December 2025)
Highlights from the 2025 (LIS)2ER-SHARE Luxembourg Workshop: “Pensions and Old-age Well-being: Policy Challenges in Ageing Societies”
On November 27-28, the LIS Cross-National Data Center and LISER co-hosted the 2025 (LIS)²ER–SHARE Luxembourg Joint Workshop on “Pensions and Old-age Well-being: Policy Challenges in Ageing Societies”. The two-day workshop, supported by the (LIS)²ER Initiative and the SHARE Country Team, brought together interdisciplinary researchers and policy experts to examine socio-economic issues and policy challenges faced by ageing societies in Europe. The workshop featured five thematic sessions with ten academic presentations, followed by a policy roundtable on pension reforms.
The workshop opened with a session themed on the perspectives on elderly care. Jérôme Schoenmaeckers (HEC-Liège) discussed the double burden of low-income persons facing a higher risk of old-age dependency, while Yarine Fawaz (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) shed light on how informal caregivers, without proper institutional support, bear adverse social
In Session 2 on health and well-being, Terhi Ravaska (Tampere University) presented evidence on how reduced working hours improved health outcomes among older workers based on part-time pensions in Finland. Mathieu Lefebvre (University of Strasbourg) also showed how worsening health conditions reshape the patterns of consumption and well-being in later life.
Policy roundtable panelists.
In Session 3 on retirement wealth, Noelia Bernal Labato (Universidad del Pacífico) presented strategies to encourage low-status workers’ participation in retirement saving plans, based on a randomized policy experiment in Peru. Kun Lee (LIS & LISER) offered a macro-comparative view on how the public-private mix in pension systems shapes wealth inequality in later life.
In Session 4, two presentations by Marike Knoef (Tilburg University) and Pilar Garcia-Gomez (Erasmus University Rotterdam) highlighted the intergenerational consequences of grandparents’ delayed retirement and parental job loss on children’s educational and health outcomes,using high-quality administrative data from the Netherlands.
In Session 5 on retirement policies, Vincenzo Galasso (Bocconi University) examined how policy uncertainty influences retirement preferences, increasing in early-retirement decisions. Arthur Seibold (LMU Munich) demonstrated the spillover effects of raising retirement ages, augmenting behavioural responses through close social networks.
The workshop concluded with a policy roundtable, “Shaping the Future: The Acceptability of Pension Reforms”, bringing together Louis Chauvel (University of Luxembourg), Thomas Dominique (IGSS), Bernhard Ebbinghaus (University of Mannheim), Tanja Kirn (University of Liechtenstein), Neil Martin (OECD), Eugenio Peluso (LISER) and Gabriel Gomes (STATEC), moderated by Philippe Liégeois (LISER). The seven panelists discussed some pressing issues and challenges surrounding pension reforms across Europe, such as uncertainties and complexities in making long-term fiscal projections and intergenerational justice in the context of demographic transition, polycrisis, and welfare state reforms. The speakers also emphasized the importance of fairness, communications and the processing of information in shaping the public acceptability of pension reforms.
Overall, the workshop showcased the importance of interdisciplinary collaborations and effective communications between policymakers, academics and the public to translate scientific evidence into policy actions. We thank all presenters, discussants, panelists and participants for their contributions and engagement to these rich discussions on one of the most pressing policy challenges of our time.
More information about the workshop and the available presentations, are accessible from this link.