Pensions, Ageing and Social Security Research: Literature Review and Global Trends

Abstract

Pension systems are one of the fundamental pillars of the welfare state. The ageing of the population caused by longer life expectancy and low birth rates has led to a crisis in the public pension system in developed countries. Changes for the system’s sustainability are necessary, and the scientific literature on the subject is abundant, especially in recent years. This article aims to carry out a bibliometric analysis of the research carried out to date, highlighting, in turn, future lines of research. The study was carried out on a total of 1287 articles published from 1936 to 2021 and found in the Scopus database. The SciMAT, VOSviewer, and Datawrapper tools were used to analyse the most important articles, authors, countries, and institutions by volume of production and citations, as well as the relationships between them. Likewise, the most important keywords and their evolution over time were highlighted, obtaining the main focus of the research. In addition to the general analysis, a specific study was carried out in the area of Mathematics. The results show that the leading countries are the United Kingdom, the USA, and the Netherlands. On the other hand, the lead subject area in which these articles have been published is Economics, Econometrics, and Finance. The research trends are sustainability, pension reform related to ageing, and pension insurance.

Pensions and retirement systems research: a retrospective assessment from 1910 to 2022 using bibliometric analysis

“…The has made a contribution to literature with the use of bibliometric data that contains more than five times the number of articles of the previous work by Martínez et al . (2021), which similarly had a narrower focus in the field of Mathematics.…”

“…The importance of pension in the socio-economic environment of any society has been widely acknowledged (Ariana, 2004;Mart ınez et al, 2021;Wang et al, 2014). As persons age, their ability to generate income is reduced, thereby putting a strain on the family, community and society at large.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, only one article with bibliometric analysis on pension, aging and social security has been published in the academic literature thus far. In a study carried out on 1,287 articles published from 1936 to 2021, the authors relied on Scopus database and limited their literature review to searches in journal articles (Martínez et al ., 2021).…”

“…In our view, this would provide valuable works on the study of pensions. Further, this study employs single keywords in the analysis to display the trends in the broader field of pension research, a gap yet to be addressed in the literature (Martínez et al ., 2021).…”

The application of technology to improve cognition in older adults: A review and suggestions for future directions

“…Decreasing birth rates and increasing life expectancies are fueling a continual increase in older adult populations worldwide (Valls Martínez et al, 2021). Advancing age has been linked to cognitive decline in adults aged over 60 (Salthouse, 2009), and the prevalence of cognitive deteriorative diseases, such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD), is increasing in this age group.…”