This figure is from ‘Table 29 - Accrued-to-date pension entitlements in social insurance’. The table contains data on Norwegian pension schemes for the years 2015 to 2021. Pension statistics for EU and EEA countries were released by Eurostat on Friday 16 February 2024, and are available on Eurostat’s website. The aim is to highlight the value of pension obligations in all European countries and increase comparability between countries in the EU/EEA.

The accrued-to-date pension entitlements are quantified by estimating Present value (PV) is the current value of a future sum of money or cash flow stream given a specified rate of return. of future pension benefits to everyone who has earned pension entitlements in occupational pension schemes and the National Insurance Scheme (NIS).

To give an impression of the magnitude, we have compared the value of the pension entitlements with the gross domestic product (GDP) for Mainland GDP consists of all domestic production activity except oil and gas extraction, pipeline transport and foreign shipping..The accrued entitlements to Comprising of retirement and survivor’s pension, and disability benefit. are clearly the most important component. At the end of 2021, these entitlements amounted to almost NOK 10 650 billion, which corresponds to 3.2 times mainland GDP. The accrued entitlements in occupational pension schemes amounted to approximately NOK 2530 billion. In total, households’ pension entitlements were 4 times higher than mainland GDP.

The calculations of pension entitlements in funded occupational pension schemes for employees in general government and non-general government sectors are based on detailed accounting statistics for life insurance companies and pension funds.

Pensions entitlements in unfunded defined benefit schemes in NIS and the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund are estimated using Statistics Norway’s dynamic microsimulation model MOSART. Estimations of entitlements are based on expected future pension benefits and choice of Difference between the nominal rate and average wage growth used in indexation of entitlements. is therefore of significant importance. The estimations are based on the population projections for Norway in Europop.

The estimations are done using the Norwegian microsimulation model MOSART. This is a dynamic microsimulation model that simulates lifetime trajectories for the entire Norwegian population. The model uses transition probabilities depending on individual characteristics that are estimated from observed transitions in a recent period. Events included in the simulation are migration, deaths, births, household formation, education, retirement, labour force participation and income. Pension benefits are calculated from the simulated labour market earnings and other characteristics included in the simulation, according to an accurate description of the pension system. For more details, see the model’s website.