People are living longer lives and many are, in fact, working long past the age at which they retired in the past. It has been suggested, therefore, that we need to make changes in the way that we create and manage pensions. The Canadian Institute of Actuaries believes that we ought to push pension enrollment to a later date in life as a result of these demographic shifts.
Are actuaries the best people to decide on how to make pensions work better in an age when we are changing the way that we work? Will these kinds of recommendations result in the right outcomes for Canadians, and for companies?
In this paper, we look into understanding what is possible for pension planning when the focus isn’t on actuaries’ point of view on running the numbers to avoid risk. To be an informed leader, does one only have to understand economics, actuarial science, and mathematical calculations to succeed at this task? Or, perhaps, ought we to be looking at different metrics and our management knowledge and instincts connected to leadership principles as well?