Prediction of the demographic and financial balance of the Iranian Social Security Fund using a dynamic microsimulation model

The Social Security Fund, as the largest pension fund in Iran, covers about half of the country's population, and its demographic and financial status is of social, political and economic importance. In this article, an attempt has been made to examine the demographic structure and the financial balance of this fund over the next 100 years (2020-2119). For this purpose, a one percent sample of the contributors and pensioners of the Social Security Fund is selected in the base year (2019) and its demographic and financial structure is predicted using a dynamic behavioral microsimulation model. The results show that between 2020 and 2044, the population of the pensioners will increase at a high speed; so that the number of new retirees increases from about 145,000 in 2020 to over 605,000 in 2044. Moreover, in 2064, the total population of pensioners will pass the population of contributors, and as a result, the fund's support ratio will fall well below a number lower than 1. On the other hand, the ratio of cash incomes to expenditres will reach about 28% in 2044 (from about 82% in 2020) and the contribution rate, which equates the incomes and expenditures of the fund, will reach about 65% (from lower than 20% in 2020). The results show that tne next two decades is a crutial window for pension policy-making in Iranian Social Security Fund. Solving this crisis requires the adoption of various parametric and structural reforms focusing on the effective period of the next two decades.