Are Pensions and Disability Benefits Concordant with Means and Health? A Tobit Approach to SHARE Data from 50-to-89-Year-Olds Covering 12 European Countries from 2015 to 2022

Public pensions and benefits are a cornerstone for safeguarding citizens’ standard of living. This study focuses on the determinants of old-age pensions as well as disability pensions and benefits. The data is provided by the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), and covers people aged 50 to 89 years old for the period 2015 to 2022 in 12 European countries. The relationship between the determinants and old-age as well as disability pensions is estimated using Multi-effects and Random-Effects Tobit estimators with a minimum of 106,240 observations of minimum 47,832 respondents. The results indicate that both old-age and disability pensions appear to be limited complementary across countries. Old-age pensions are lower at lower self-reported health levels, while disability pensions and benefits appear to be higher. Moreover, the public payment schemes appear to account for the remaining available income of the beneficiary, implying that a given fairness is incorporated in the payment policies. Remarkably, both payments reveal the presence of a pension gender gap, potentially arising from a preceding wage gap. Overall, the study illustrates on a high level the fair allocation of available means to old-age as well as disability pensions across a substantial part of Europe.