Pension systems are usually evaluated from the perspective of two basic criteria: pension adequacy and financial sustainability. The first criterion concerns the level of pension benefits and protection of the elderly from poverty. The second criterion applies to financial liquidity. This paper is primarily of methodological nature. We discuss the problem of measuring pension adequacy, focusing mainly on the replacement rate, which, defined in a number of ways, is the most common measure of pension adequacy. However, as we argue in this paper, it covers only one of its dimensions, namely consumption smoothing. Meanwhile, an equally important dimension, often discussed in the literature and included in most definitions of pension adequacy, is protection of old-age pensioners from poverty. Accordingly, we have proved the thesis that the replacement rate is not a sufficient measure of broadly understood pension adequacy in cross-country studies. Consequently, we have proposed alternative (or possibly complementary) measures called the synthetic pension adequacy indicators (SPAI1-3), defined in basic form as a quotient of relative median income and the at-risk-of-poverty rate. These indicators provide for both the above-mentioned dimensions of adequacy and, according to statistical analysis, also represent them very well. Moreover, the indicators, calculated separately for men and for women, enables evaluation of the third dimension of pension adequacy, namely gender-related differences in pension adequacy.

The existing literature on the efficiency of pension system, usually addresses the problem between the choice of different theoretical models, or concerns one or few empirical pension systems. In this paper quite different approach to the measurement of pension system efficiency is proposed. It is dedicated mainly to the cross-country studies of empirical pension systems, however it may be also employed to the analysis of a given pension system on the basis of time series. I identify four dimensions of pension system efficiency, referring to: GDP-distribution, adequacy of pension, influence on the labour market and administrative costs. Consequently, I propose four sets of static and one set of dynamic efficiency indicators. In the empirical part of the paper, I use Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient and cluster analysis to verify the proposed method on statistical data covering 28 European countries in years 2007–2011. I prove that the method works and enables some comparisons as well as clustering of analyzed pension systems. The study delivers also some interesting empirical findings. The main goal of pension systems seems to become poverty alleviation, since the efficiency of ensuring protection against poverty, as well as the efficiency of reducing poverty, is very resistant to the efficiency of GDP-distribution. The opposite situation characterizes the efficiency of consumption smoothing—this is generally sensitive to the efficiency of GDP-distribution, and its dynamics are sensitive to the dynamics of GDP-distribution efficiency. The results of the study indicate the Norwegian and the Icelandic pension systems to be the most efficient in the analyzed group.

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In this paper, we attempt to incorporate an innovative and more comprehensive view of defamilization into the comparative analysis of real-type welfare state models. The study presents four empirically distinguished welfare state regimes where we consider separately both notions associated with (de)familization and (de)genderization together with other dimensions characterizing different welfare state models. In a multivariate statistical analysis framework, we examine 25 European countries using data covering the period between 2014 and 2017. Our findings suggest that whereas Southern European countries represent various welfare state models, most of the analyzed Central and Eastern European countries form a separate group. Similarly, the Nordic countries, except Iceland, belong to the same cluster. However, CEE countries and Nordic countries represent extremely divergent models in terms of the degree of degenderization, but similar in terms of family policy, the public-private mix, as well as welfare state generosity. The data also show that the extensive welfare state coexists with the state's predominance in delivering welfare provisions. Moreover, we demonstrate that neither the general size of the welfare state or its public-private mix nor a pro-family policy differentiate the socio-economic situation of women across countries studied.