ABSTRACT
In public policy, age matters. A myriad of policies stipulate rights, obligations, benefits, and taxes on the basis of chronological age. Chronological age is a simple, easily understood characteristic of people and this makes it particularly useful in the specification of public policies. One common use of chronological age in the public policy arena has been in the specification of a normal pension age. Some OECD countries legislate normal pension ages episodically, these include the United States, the UK, and Australia. Others such as Sweden, Italy, Norway, and Poland either have or are planning to have the equivalent of some form of demographically indexed normal pension age. Most of the information in this chapter about the pension systems in OECD countries comes from recent OECD publications (OECD, 2014; OECD, 2013; OECD, 2011).
