with the collaboration of

Most industrial countries have become increasingly concerned about the costs of maintaining their public pension programs as they look ahead to rapid growth in their retiree populations. Yet in many countries, the public pension is not intended to be the sole means of support during retirement. In some countries, it is designed to provide support for a minimal (or near-poverty) level of consumption, with additional resources coming from a combination of private employer-provided pensions, individuals ’ own savings, and continued labor income. Thus, the magnitude of those other sources is critical to evaluating the adequacy of the existing public pension and the options for reducing its cost. Much of the cross-national analysis of the potential burden of aging populations has focused on prospective changes in the ratio of retired to working-age populations. Less attention has been directed toward measuring cross-national differences in the actual 1 We are indebted to Lisa Bell for her considerable assistance in obtaining data from the surveys o