Studying the Experience of Parametric Reforms in Selected Countries to Provide Solutions to Social Security Organization

During the past four decades, many developed and developing countries have implemented pension reform and rearrangement. Although these reforms have been implemented with different goals, maintenance of financial sustainability has generally been considered as one of the main goals. Various evidences show that Iran's pension system in general, and the Social Security pension system in particular, need to be reformed in order to maintain their long-term financial sustainability.

The present article, reviews pension system reforms with a focus on how to calculate the pension, based on descriptive – analytical method. For this purpose, the reforms in 16 selected countries with similar macroeconomic conditions or similar social security system to Iran have been studied. The countries have also implemented successful pension reforms.

The findings show that it is not possible to consider a fixed model for calculating the retirement pension and setting the retirement qualifications for all countries. But generally, some reforms have been implemented in many countries with similar conditions.

Accordingly, major reform strategies to be implemented for the Iranian pension system should consider: increasing the retirement age and the number of years of contribution payment; determining the exact method of indexing pensions; adjusting the method and amount of survivors' benefits; setting fixed premium rate; reviewing early retirement conditions; creating a base layer for the pension system; and finally, a gradual movement approach towards planning and implementing reforms. Paying attention to these points can lead to the reform of Iran's pension system with lower costs and more benefits.