Концепция пенсионного кризиса в свете проблемы законов-тенденций в методологии экономической науки

Россия и современный мир. 2020. № 4. С. 242–261.

Miriakov M.

In the second half of the 20th century modern demographic trends, leading to the population ageing, shaped the pension policy agenda. The population ageing argument played crucial role in the pension reform and, more general, welfare state discourse, explaining the inevitability of the fall of “old-fashioned” state-led pension systems in the long run. The paper provides a critical analysis of this thesis, called the “pension crisis concept”. It is shown that this concept should be considered as a tendency law, extrapolating particular factor in order to show the inevitability of the crisis in the future. One of the most famous examples of tendency laws is once influential idea of T.R. Malthus — “law of population”, which was the basis of criticism of attempts to improve the living standards of the population several centuries ago.

 Analysis of the pension crisis concept as a tendency law provides a critical look at the modern pension reform discourse, which constitutes a direct link between the population ageing and the future of pension systems. Historians of economic thought have already noticed that the ongoing debate on the welfare state can be considered as a strong analogue to the debates on the Malthusian principle of population. The paper demonstrates that one of the central arguments of the welfare state critics and Malthusian law were built on the same methodological principle.

 Although the pension crisis concept is the subject of serious criticism as oversimplifying reality, demographic explanation continues to shape the political agenda of many governments all over the world. However, despite long debates, the degree of influence of the aging of the population on the prospects of pension provision remains scantily explored.

Keywords: социальная политика, пенсионная реформа, старение населения, social policy, pension reform, population ageing, tendency law, pension system crisis, закон-тенденция, кризис пенсионных систем