中东和北非地区养老金制度及其改革的财政影响

Montserrat Pallares-Miralles May 2025 ©2026 The World Bank1818 H Street NW, Washington DC 20433 Some rights reserved. This work is a product of the World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed inthis work do not necessarily reflect the views of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or currency of the data included in thiswork and does not assume responsibility for any errors, omissions, or discrepancies in the information,or liability with respect to the use of or failure to use the information, methods, processes, orconclusions set forth. The boundaries, colors, denominations, links/footnotes, and other information Nothing herein shall constitute or be construed or considered to be a limitation upon or waiver of theprivileges and immunities of The World Bank, all of which are specifically reserved. Rights and Permissions The material in this work is subject to copyright. Because The World Bank encourages dissemination ofits knowledge, this work may be reproduced, in whole or in part, for noncommercial purposes as long as Attribution:Montserrat Pallares-Miralles. 2026. “Fiscal impacts of pension systems and their reforms inthe MENA region”. World Bank. Valuable advice and guidance was received from Ugo Gentilini, and This background paper is part of the regional flagship report “Embracing and Shaping Change: HumanDevelopment for a Middle East and North African in Transition “ of the World Bank MENAAP People Any queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary rights, should be addressed to World BankPublications, The World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; fax: 202-522-2625; Contents I.Overview of the pension systems and their challenges in the MENA region ....................................... 4II.What exactly makes pension spending so high and increasing in the region? .................................... 6 I.Overview of the pension systems and their challenges in the MENA region Pension spending in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is often one of the largestand increasing public expenditure items, averaging around 2 percent of gross domesticproduct (GDP) in the early 2000s and currently about 4 percent of GDP.Morocco, Iran, Tunisia,Algeria, Malta, and Jordan already spend more than 5 percent of their GDP on pensions (see Figure1). Expenditures in the social protection (SP) sector in many countries in the region keep being All 20 countries in MENA have some type of pension system, mostly fragmented, and mandatory, publicly managed, contributory earnings-related, pay-as-you-go (PAYG), anddefined benefit (DB).2 Pension programs in the region are relatively young—all have beenestablished since the 1950s.Signi�icant administrative costs arise from the fragmentation of the social insurance (contributory) systems, which cover different programs. In addition to the main program that covers old age, invalidity, and survivors, social insurance also includes programs onwork injury, family allowances, sickness and maternity, and unemployment. Countries in the regionoften have two, three, or more pension schemes, usually covering public and private sector employeesseparately. However, even in countries where the same scheme covers private and public sectoremployees (for example, Algeria), a different scheme covers self-employed individuals, and different As contributory pension schemes, they were meant to be self-�inancing.However, they havebeen increasingly relying on the general budget.This growing burden on national �inancesis crowding out support for other deserving policy programs and creating high inequalities. Populationaging makes these preexisting challenges even more dif�icult. PAYG systems are, in essence, contractsissued by the government that promise to pay pensions in the future in exchange for contributions in the present. Hence, governments are receiving money today and creating an unfunded obligation in the future, which is a �inancial operation very similar to issuing regular debt. If the implicit interestrate on this debt is too high, the pension system will eventually encounter dif�iculties.When theseschemes incur de�icits (or even beforehand), resources are transferred to them from the generalbudget.However, even if de�icits are modest, using public resources to subsidize pensions for formal The essence of the �inancial problem across pension systems inMENA countries is that implicitrates of return on contributions are too high. Therefore, all pension systems in the region are �inancially unsustainable, even in the absence of a future aging of the population. As illustrated in Figure 2, in the early 2000s, the average current balance was slightly positive.3Revenues from contributions exceeded pension expenditures in various national schemes covering general workers. However, the majority of the schemes covering civil servants and the mili