The Retirement Savings Laboratory launched by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is a worthy initiative that should be embraced by all governments in the jurisdictions to which it applies.

According to the IDB, this project is designed to increase the number of people saving for retirement in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The bank estimates that about 130 million people in the region are not saving for retirement. This, it said, “will make it difficult for them to have a good life when they reach old age, especially for low-income and independent workers”.

According to the IDB, the main causes of under-saving for retirement are problems in the way labour markets function, the design of pension systems, and the psychological barriers inherent in human nature.

This, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) tells us, explains why few workers in the region save for retirement, despite surveys showing that they want to do so.

Interestingly, this IDB project comes a month after former Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, in an address to the Rotary Club of Kingston, pointed to the challenges that an ageing population will pose to Jamaica.

In that address, Mr Golding noted that the 2012 Survey of Living Conditions shows that 63 per cent of Jamaica’s elderly do not now benefit from a pension plan; only 23 per cent of the elderly were receiving assistance under the Programme for Advancement Through Health and Education; 77 per cent had neither private health insurance nor NI Gold coverage; 72 per cent were suffering from one or more chronic illnesses — hypertension, diabetes, and arthritis being the most prevalent; 15 per cent were disabled, mainly from blindness and strokes; and 75 per cent were dependent on some form of medication.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/editorial/idb-8217-s-retirement-savings-laboratory-a-good-initiative_130975