THE GOVERNMENT COALITION'S PENSION REFORM PROPOSAL 2021-2025 AND ITS IMPACT ON BUDGET SUSTAINABILITY

The thesis provides a critical assessment of the pension reform enacted by the government in 2021–2025, focusing on its impact on fiscal sustainability. The theoretical section delineates pension systems (financing methods and plan types), outlines the evolution and current design of the Czech pension system since 1989, and summarizes the demographic and fiscal context motivating change. It also reviews the measures adopted in 2023–2024 as a basis for the subsequent analysis. The practical section builds an evaluation framework tracking fiscal efficiency, long-term sustainability, distributional effects, and risk, and applies it to individual components of the reform. The analysis covers fiscal impacts over the short and medium term (2025–2030) and the long term (2031–2064), draws on projections of the pension account and the replacement rate, incorporates sensitivity to key assumptions, and compares the enacted reform with proposals of the Fair Pensions Commission. It also develops scenarios for shifts in the statutory retirement age and offers recommendations for adjustments to the first and third pillars. The results indicate that the reform materially strengthens fiscal sustainability but introduces new thresholds and layers of complexity that may reduce transparency and comprehensibility; the effects of individual measures differ and require careful monitoring over time.