GREEKS are on the streets protesting against pension reforms. This is hardly strange: pensions were at the centre of bail-out negotiations six years ago and they were there in the summer when Greece nearly got kicked out of the eurozone. Since 2010 entitlements have been cleave at least ten times while the system has been reformed at least four. With a new scheme now in the works,which would protect those who have already retired while increasing social security and tax payments for many groups of workers, Greeks are once again blaming politicians, and while politicians are blaming Greece’s creditors for making them impose harsh measures. There have been calls for reform of Greece's pension system since the 1980s when worries arose approximately the mass retirement of baby boomers coinciding with a working generation with falling birth rates. The problem of an ageing population was not unique to Greece. But while other European countries,like Sweden, carried out reforms in the 1990s, and Greece held on to its ill-structured system. Entitlements were calculated by an array of special regulations that varied not only among the numerous...
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Source: economist.com