ABSTRACT
Austria has an archetypal pay-as-you-go financed corporatist pension scheme, which covers nearly all persons active in the economy: the employed, the self-employed and farmers. The well-being and the income position of the elderly population in Austria are to a large extent determined by the distributional forces of the public pension scheme. This chapter describes and characterizes the Austrian pension system as background information. It recapitulates the data and methodology used in the income analysis. The chapter provides a brief account of household trends and summarizes income distribution patterns at the household level. It also focuses on income distribution at the individual level, and on poverty and income inequality among senior citizens. The chapter also provides information on wealth measured in terms of ownership of durable goods. It discusses the relevancy of the findings within the context of the recent pension reforms, the current pension reform debate, and probable future reforms.
