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To promote transparency and provide information, the Federal Planning Bureau regularly publishes the methods and results of its works. The publications are organised in different series, such as Outlooks, Working Papers and Planning Papers. Some reports can be consulted here, along with the Short Term Update newsletters that were published until 2015. You can search our publications by theme, publication type, author and year.
The supplementary table 29 of the Eurostat transmission program covers the statutory and occupational pension schemes in social insurance in Belgium. The FPB is charged with the compilation of columns G and H, which include accrued-to-date pension entitlements/liabilities in the statutory pension schemes, representing the present discounted value of accrued-to-date future old-age and survivor pensions of current beneficiaries and future beneficiaries who accumulated pension rights up to the valuation date.
This version of the report of January 2021 is an update of the version originally posted on the FPB website in December 2020. New estimates have been made with the assumption of a fixed discount rate of 2% for the baseline scenario and 1 and 3% for the sensitivity analysis.
Reports - REP_12213 (en),
The 2020-2070 demographic outlook presents the evolution of the population and households in Belgium from 2020 to 2070. In addition to updating future demographic trends, this outlook is built on a specific scenario related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Population growth in 2020 and 2021 will be very moderate, particularly as a result of the impact of COVID on mortality and international migration
Forecasts & Outlook - FOR_DP20_12326 (fr), (nl),
The Ageing Working Group was established in December 1999 by the Economic Policy Committee of the European Council ECOFIN. This working group is responsible for producing common budgetary projections on age-related public expenditure items. Each Member State calculates its long-term pension expenditure based on common assumptions.
This report presents the Belgian pension projection 2019-2070 published in the “2021 Ageing Report”. These results will be used in the context of the “Fiscal Sustainability Report” of the European Commission that assesses the mid-term and long-term fiscal situation of Member states.
It should be noted that the demographic and macroeconomic assumptions in the public pension expenditure projection of Belgium for the AWG are different from those retained in the national projection of the Study Committee on Ageing, as well as the scope of pension definition.
Reports - REP_COUNTRYFICH2020 (en),
This Working Paper presents the methodology that has been applied since 2020 in the model used to draw up the population outlook for Belgium. The methodology considers that fertility is explained by both structural (education, labour market participation, etc.) and cyclical factors (the economic cycle, etc.). Those factors are taken into account through three elements: (1) expert opinion on long-term fertility trends, (2) an explicit trend in the fertility schedule and (3) the effect of cyclical and structural determinants of fertility using an error-correction model.
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-20 (en),
Forecasts & Outlook - FORVERG202001 (fr), (nl),
Reports - REP_POP1970 (fr), (nl),
The 2019-2070 demographic outlook presents the evolution of the population and households in Belgium from 2019 to 2070.
The outlook also highlights the impact of alternative fertility scenarios on population growth. In the light of fertility trends and population ageing, it also confirms the key role of international migration in population growth.
Forecasts & Outlook - EFPOP1970 (fr), (nl),
This Working Paper identifies the characteristics that explain severe material deprivation in Belgium, while making a distinction between people aged below 65 and those aged 65 or above. Severe material deprivation has decreased for both groups. Young people are more impacted than the elderly. Although there is a clear link between income and deprivation, the overlap between individuals identified as at risk of poverty and those as severely deprived is far from perfect. The correlation between income poverty and deprivation is weaker for the old group than for the young.
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-19 (en),
Forecasts & Outlook - FORVERG201901 (fr), (nl),
The Federal Planning Bureau has developed within the Nowcasting project a dynamic microsimulation model for nowcasting and medium-term forecasts (currently up to 2020) of indicators of poverty and social exclusion. Key messages of this project are that nowcasting and medium-term forecasting are now possible using a fully dynamic microsimulation model. The provisional results of the model suggest that the overall poverty risk would remain stable, but that of the 65+ subpopulation would decrease over time, while that of the younger population would show a small increase. Furthermore, the increase of overall ine-quality would come to a halt and the level of inequality would become more stable. Finally, the very low work intensity rate would continue its decrease, driven by the continuing increase of the employment rate among the working-age population.
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-19 (en),
The Ageing fund, which was set up in 2001 as an instrument to ensure the long-term sustainability of public finances, was abolished in 2016. Its abolition symbolises the transition from a strategy of pre-funding the budgetary cost of ageing, which dominated in the early 2000s, to a strategy based mainly on reforms to the socioeconomic model. The latter was initiated after the global financial crisis and has been firmly stepped up in recent years. This Planning Paper describes the economic and institutional factors behind the shift in sustainability policy, as well as the role of the various stakeholders: the governments of course, but also the High Council of Finance, the European authorities and the Federal Planning Bureau, which has produced long-term analyses and assessments over the past 25 years that have both reflected and helped to shape the pursued policy.
Closed series - Planning paper 117 (fr), (nl),
The 2018-2070 demographic outlook presents the evolution of the population and households in Belgium from 2018 to 2070. The assumptions have been updated, taking into account new observations available, in particular population statistics as at 1 January 2018 and movements (births, deaths, internal and international migration) for 2017. The outlook also provides specific insight into medium-term fertility rates.
Forecasts & Outlook - EFPOP1870 (fr), (nl),
Reports - REP_MINIMA_11760 (mix),
Forecasts & Outlook - FORVERG201801 (fr), (nl),
In preparation of the 2018 Pension Adequacy Report by the European Commission and the Social Protection Committee, teams from Belgium, Sweden and Italy use their microsimulation models to simulate the possible developments of pension adequacy while taking into account the set of economic and demographic projections developed by the AWG. The results of this exercise complement the AWG simulations of pension expenditures in a context of demographic. The results described in detail in this report were summarised in section 5.1.2. of the 2018 Pension Adequacy Report.
Reports - REP_11732 (en),
Forecasts & Outlook - Economic outlook 2018-2023 (fr), (nl),
This paper explores the possibility of building a multiregional migration model at the EU level based on Eurostat statistics on migration by country of previous and next residence, by country of birth or by citizenship. These statistics are used to build a consistent origin-destination matrix for the EU Member States. In this case, ’consistent’ means that the sum of all intra-EU movements should be equal to 0. This matrix is then used to compute migration rates between EU countries, which can be inserted into a multiregional population projection model.
This paper shows that the currently available official statistics on migration flows can be used to build a multiregional migration model at the EU level. Although more developments should be implemented to test and improve the model, it produces promising results.
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-18 (en),
Reports - OPREP11700 (fr), (nl), (nl),
Reports - REP_CEP13_11694 (fr),
Reports - REP_CEP12_11678 (nl),
The Federal Planning Bureau publishes its 2017-2070 demographic projections for Belgium. This exercise notably reveals the impact of the disappearance of the baby boom generation, as well as certain regional differences.
Forecasts & Outlook - EFPOP1770 (fr), (nl),
This Working Paper analyses various alternative population projections. The first approach shows the impact of alternative future development scenarios for the population growth components. The effects of some of these scenarios on the development in social expenditure and the at-risk-of-poverty rate for pensioners are also analysed. The second approach consists in carrying out a sensitivity analysis of the population projection to some model parameters, in particular the observation periods selected to estimate trends.
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-18 (fr),
The Ageing Working Group (AWG) was established in December 1999 by the Economic Policy Committee of the European Council ECOFIN. This working group is responsible for producing common budgetary projections on age-related public expenditure items. Each Member State calculates its longterm pension expenditure based on common assumptions discussed in the AWG.
The demographic and macroeconomic assumptions in the public pension expenditure projection of Belgium for the AWG are different from those retained in the national projection of the Study Committee on Ageing, as well as the scope of pension definition. This projection is carried out using the MALTESE model of the Federal Planning Bureau.
This report presents the new Belgian pension projection 2016-2070 that will be published in the “2018 Ageing Report” next year. In addition, these results will be used in the context of the “Fiscal Sustainability Report” of the European Commission that assesses the mid-term and long-term fiscal situation of Member states.
Other publications - REP_COUNTRYFICH2017 (en),
The supplementary table 29, “Accrued-to-date pension entitlements in social insurance” of the Eurostat transmission program covers the statutory pensions and occupational pension schemes in social insurance in Belgium. In a working paper that was published May 2017, the Federal Planning Bureau presented a first methodology to complete the columns on the statutory pension schemes. Following this publication and the preliminary data transmission towards Eurostat mid-2017, the decision was taken to change the model and implement the PBO-methodology. Moreover, the first model contained an error in the programming part which lead to an overestimation of the accrued rights. This error has been corrected for. Consequently, the accrued-to-date pension entitlements are lower than the ones presented in the working paper.
Reports - REP_11311 (en),
The Commission for Pension Reform 2020-2040 proposed an adjusted pension system which calculates pensions based on collected points. An important aspect of that system implied that past wages should be adjusted on the basis of the average wage increase. This Working Paper investigates who will be the winners and the losers when this adjustment mechanism is introduced by means of a points system in the salaried workers' scheme, and why. We show that people with low pensions, low-skilled workers, tenants and women nowadays have certain career features which make sure that they gain more often from such an operation than people with high pensions, highly skilled workers, owners and men. This also underlines the importance of minimum schemes in the impact of such a reform.
Working Papers - Working Paper 09-17 (nl),
Federal Planning Bureau
