Public Pensions and Immigration

A Public Choice Approach

Tim Krieger, Wilfried Guth Chair in Regulatory and Competition Policy, University of Freiburg, Germany

The rapid ageing of societies in many industrialized countries threatens the stability of unfunded public pension systems. An immigration policy that accepts young workers would appear to be a simple solution to the challenge, by increasing the number of contributors to the pension system. Tim Krieger uses public choice analysis to investigate whether a majority of voters would pursue an active immigration policy in order to stabilize its unfunded public pension system.

‘. . . it should be welcomed by analysts, researchers, and others interested in one of the most intractable problems of Western societies – the affordability of a welfare state when a population is ageing.’
– Jonathan Grant, Population Studies

‘The relationship between ageing societies and immigration raises a variety of key social and political questions. Krieger provides an invaluable examination of the issues particularly surrounding their impact on pensions, voting and public opinion. As public debate on immigration increasingly heats up, this is a very timely book.’
– Steven Vertovec, University of Oxford, UK