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Abstract Population aging is evolving at different rates across countries and over time, and it represents a long-term challenge for both the sustainability of pension schemes and for the realization of public intergenerational transfers. In this context, this work focuses on gender differences in survival at older ages. Specifically, we implement a comparative analysis of OECD countries to assess the adequacy of the corresponding gender-specific normal retirement age when faced with growing life expectancy. The analysis hinges on several graphical representations and is motivated by recent findings on Italian longevity to determine optimal retirement age shifts necessary to match growing life expectancy at older ages while accounting for model risk for mortality projections. Our analysis determines—at the country level—the extent to which adjustments to the normal retirement age are advisable for the sustainability of the intergenerational paradigm for pensions. The study considers males and females separately because most of these countries are characterized by aging societies where men and women have different crucial characteristics, including life expectancy. It is therefore important that policymakers have information on the future evolution of the longevity gender gap so they will be able to apply policies that preserve the principles of equality and solidarity and reduce the pension gender gap. We find groups of countries where gender gap in life expectancy follows the same dynamics.

The management of National Social Security Systems is being challenged more and more by the rapid ageing of the population, especially in the industrialized countries. In order to chase the Pension System sustainability, several countries in Europe are setting up pension reforms linking the retirement age and/or benefits to life expectancy. In this context, the accurate modelling and projection of mortality rates and life expectancy play a central role and represent issues of great interest in recent literature. Our study refers to the Italian mortality experience and considers an indexing mechanism based on the expected residual life to adjust the retirement age and keep costs at an expected budgeted level, in the spirit of sharing the longevity risk between Social Security Systems and retirees. In order to combine fitting and projections performances of selected stochastic mortality models, a model assembling technique is applied to face uncertainty in model selection, while accounting for uncertainty of estimation as well. The resulting proposal is an averaged model that is suitable to discuss about the gender gap in longevity risk and its alleged narrowing over time.

Adoption of soil conservation practices is promoted by increased engagement between researchers and stakeholders. By reporting a case study from southern Italy where farmers have been involved in research projects dealing with soil conservation over several years, we demonstrated that the rate of adoption of conservative technologies is positively linked to the degree of stakeholder participation in the project and that farmers (and other stakeholders) have been driven toward more conscious perception of the complex link between agricultural practices, environmental impacts and socioeconomic effects. The results of this study reinforce the pivotal role of effective participatory processes in soil conservation—evidencing the importance of (i) time required to build relationships and (ii) intensity (and persistence) of collaboration among similar initiatives. Empirical evidence highlights the need to combine different approaches to deal with soil degradation. As well as the participatory time length, the synergies between the methods utilized, and the range of interacting mind sets are also very important.