The Minister for Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, yesterday declared himself a fan of behavioural economics for, among other things, the design of social protection systems. Escrivá acknowledged this during his speech at the 7th Pension Conference organised by CincoDías and Ibercaja, where Diego Valero, president of Novaster and an expert in this new behavioural science discipline defended by the minister, explained that in long-lived societies such as Spain's, "what is needed is not technological innovation, which we already have, but rather social innovation".

In Valero's opinion, society must prepare itself for this new world "and that means having people at the centre of everything and understanding their behaviour". On this point, behavioural science helps people to make better decisions.

In this sense, he considered that the role of the financial industry in this social revolution should be to "accompany people; it is not about selling products but about satisfying those needs that people should have covered". Moreover, he added that work can be done to change these needs. To this end, he gave as an example that people should understand that they should not quickly spend all the money they have saved on pandemics and that this money will help them to live better in retirement.

Moving down to the field of pensions, Valero considered that the necessary adaptation in these longer-lived societies will imply, among other things, "that the retirement age should be in line with the time we live and must be adjusted, although it is often a drama to consider it".

In fact, the social protection consultant pointed out that many countries have already introduced automatic adjustments to the retirement age. However, it seems that this type of adjustment has been completely ruled out in the redesign of the pension system that the government is negotiating with the social partners. Despite the fact that these adjustment mechanisms for the retirement age are not going to be adopted, Valero considered that active ageing should be promoted. He called for universities to be reconverted into permanent retraining centres because this would prevent older people from being unable to work.

He also called on governments to ensure that pension systems that depend on the balance of generations - such as the Spanish system - are balanced in the long term. And, finally, he launched a reflection: "All pension problems would be solved if we were more productive".

También reclamó que los Gobiernos deben conseguir que los sistemas de pensiones que dependen del balance generacional –como el español– estén equilibrados en el largo plazo. Y, finalmente, lanzó una reflexión: “Todos los problemas de pensiones se resolverían si fuéramos más productivos”.