Les retraites en France à l'horizon 2040. Un essai de prospective

Many studies of the future of retirement pensions have already been conducted in France. All of them, however, use a similar approach: with the help of a macroeconomic model which assumes that the current social and economic system will be maintained unchanged, and using a range of different assumptions, they simulate the impact of an ageing population on pensions.
While the authors here do not challenge the value of these studies, they are sceptical about the underlying assumption that the present social and economic system will still be the same in 2040. They therefore set out to examine which factors might lead to shifts and discontinuities by 2040, i.e. to explore the possible futures of French society and the issues that might arise because of an ageing population.
The article summarizes the main outcomes of an exercise in scenario-building for pensions in France up to 2040 carried out by Futuribles with support from the pensions department of the ‘Caisse des dépôts et consignations’ and the ‘Observatoire des retraites’. The study presents six different scenarios for 2020 and five for 2040; it shows that there is a very broad range of possible futures, even over the next 20 years, and especially that the problem of pensions threatens to become acute if, as the authors think, economic growth starts to flag and the necessary reforms are constantly postponed.
From this exercise, the authors highlight seven major outcomes and stress in particular that certain measures should be taken as quickly as possible, measures which are related not just to pensions, but rather to the general dynamics of French society, above all the labour market.