Introduction

World Bank cost projections based upon likely future global demographic ageing levels suggest that ‘public spending on old age security will escalate sharply in all regions’. As the predicted regional variations in the future cost of pension provision suggest, the demographic context within which the global pension system reform debate occurs will become differentially problematic, with obvious implications for both analysis and practice. Currently, there is a rather obvious mismatch between the contents of much of the ongoing pension’s reform debates and the contexts within which ‘radical’ pension reform is mainly occurring on the ground as policy. The correct choice of pensions funding, management and delivery systems is increasingly perceived as central to the functioning and healthy development of national economies in free market systems. In principle, stimulating the development of private pensions sectors and other forms of contractual savings, most rapidly and most comprehensively achieved through making pensions saving mandatory, can aid the development of capital markets.