The Dominican Republic's Pensions Superintendency (SIPEN) published highlights from a radio interview held around the “New Trends in Pensions” dialogue it organised with the World Bank, the Inter-American Conference on Social Security (CISS) and the Institutional Foundation for Justice (FINJUS), setting out key challenges and international reference points for the Dominican pension system. SIPEN superintendent Francisco A. Torres said that, although the system has more than 5 million affiliates, only 2.3 million contribute actively, reflecting high labour informality and frequent movement between formal and informal jobs. Torres put contribution density at 41 months per 100 months worked and said the average contributory wage is DOP 36,000, with a total contribution rate of 9.97% split between 2.87% paid by workers and 7.10% by employers. He also noted that accumulated pension funds are equivalent to 20% of GDP and that investment returns represent more than half of the balances in individual accounts. Contributions from CISS and the World Bank focused on balancing efficiency and equity and on the limits of traditional contributory models in dynamic labour markets, with the World Bank pointing to higher formal employment in Chile and Uruguay and recommending policy adjustments such as linking retirement age to life expectancy. SIPEN’s director of studies, Antonio Giraldi, presented an International Labour Organization actuarial model for projecting 100-year scenarios and cited Mercer Index results placing the Dominican system among the region’s better performers while flagging scope to improve coverage and benefit adequacy. SIPEN framed the discussion as part of a technical debate on potential improvements to the Dominican pension system involving legislators and international organisations.

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