Rewriting the Social Contract? Pension Reform in Mexico and Russia

• In Event: Russian Political Economy: Arctic, Oil, Welfare and Pension

Abstract

Thirty countries around the world adopted varying degrees of pension privatization and about a third of these countries have ultimately abandoned the reform. I evaluate public opinion about pension privatization in a country that adopted moderate pension privatization and reversed the reform (Russia) and in a country that adopted extensive pension privatization and did not reverse (Mexico). The analysis is based on original survey data from Mexico in 2016 and from Russia in 2014 and 2015. Despite very different policy trajectories, there are some striking similarities in public opinion in both countries. In both countries, there appears to have been limited support for pension privatization and limited awareness about even the most publicized aspects of the policy. Rather than pension privatization rewriting the social contract, this reform altered politics through interest group and elite level politics. This challenges important assumptions in path dependency literature and has real-world implications for practitioners of social security reforms.

Author

• Sarah Wilson Sokhey, University of Colorado, Boulder