Weighted Averages: Pension Levels and Pension Wealth

The indicators so far have shown replacement rates, relative pension levels and pension wealth for people at different levels of earnings. By taking a weighted average of these indicators over the earnings range, the measures presented here show the average for the pension level at the time of retirement and pension wealth, the lifetime value of pension payments. The first of these is designed to show the level of the average retirement income, taking account of the different treatment of workers with different incomes. The average pension level is 55.3% of economy-wide average earnings across the OECD34 countries. The second aims to summarise the total cost of providing old-age incomes. Weighted average pension wealth is an average of 10.3 times annual economy-wide average earnings for men and 12.0 for women.