33rd Colloquium on Pensions and Retirement Research
24-25 November 2025 (Colombo House Theatres, UNSW Sydney)
The 33rd Colloquium on Pensions and Retirement Research will be held at UNSW Sydney on 24-25 November 2025. The Colloquium brings together academics in economics, actuarial studies, finance, and related fields, alongside government and industry, to discuss cutting-edge research on pensions, superannuation, and retirement. It is co-hosted by the Centre for Population Ageing Research (CEPAR) and the School of Risk & Actuarial Studies, with support from the Innovations in Risk, Insurance and Superannuation (IRIS) Knowledge Hub, all within UNSW Business School. The Colloquium also receives financial support from the American Risk and Insurance Association (ARIA).
Location: Colombo House, UNSW Sydney (Map)
Registration
Please use this link to register for the Colloquium: Colloquium Registration
Note: The Colloquium is an in-person event only. A registration fee applies to all participants. Travel and accommodation costs are not covered.
Themes at this year’s Colloquium include retirement income product design and decumulation, mortality modelling and longevity risk-sharing, housing wealth and reverse mortgages, financial literacy and retirement confidence, aged care financing, inequality in retirement outcomes, digital advice, AI and trusteeship in superannuation, and international pension system reform and policy innovation.
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PROGRAM: MONDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 2025 |
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8:30 – 9:00 |
Arrival and Registration |
Foyer |
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9:00 – 9:10 |
WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS John Piggott, Director, Centre for Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), UNSW Sydney Bernard Wong, Head of School, School of Risk & Actuarial Studies, UNSW Sydney |
Colombo A |
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9:10 – 10:35 |
SESSION 1: PANEL Managing Long-Term Savings in the New World Order Chair: David Bell (The Conexus Institute) |
Colombo A |
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Guy Debelle, Funds SA John Pearce, UniSuper Craig Thorburn, Future Fund Susan Thorp, University of Sydney |
Colombo A |
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10:35 –11:00 |
Morning Tea |
Foyer |
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11:00 – 13:00 |
SESSION 2 |
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Session 2A Drawdown Design Chair: Hanlin Lou (UNSW Sydney) |
Session 2B Retirement Risk and Policy Chair: Trang Le (UNSW Sydney) |
Session 2C Lifecycle Modelling Chair: Yang Shen (UNSW Sydney) |
Colombo A, B, C |
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Are the Minimum Drawdown Requirements for Account Based Pensions Fit for Purpose? Helen Hodgson Curtin University |
The Impact of Climate Change on Social Security Systems: An Extension of the DICE Model Séverine Arnold University of Lausanne
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Liquidity Shocks, Homeownership, and Income Inequality: Impact of Early Pension Withdrawals and Reduced Deposit Hamza Hanbali University of Melbourne |
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Optimal Decumulation Strategy with Long-Term Care Insurance and Guaranteed Minimum Death Benefit Mengdi Hu UNSW Sydney |
Why Severe Liquidity Stress in Superannuation Is Hard to Foresee David Bell The Conexus Institute |
Increased Inequality in Financial Wealth for Retirees Kaja Kierulf UNSW Sydney |
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Retirement Confidence and Sentiment and Their Impact on Retirement Outcomes: Insights from the How Australia Retires 2025 Survey Osei Wiafe Vanguard Australia |
Artificial Intelligence and Super Fund Trusteeship Scott Donald UNSW Sydney |
A Sequential Decision-Making Framework for Life-Cycle Retirement Pension Optimization Using Deep Reinforcement Learning Haizhou Cui Monash University |
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Bridging the Digital Advice Gap in Retirement: Aware Super's Retirement Manager and Human-Centred Design for Drawdown Decisions Young Tan Aware Super |
Transforming How Superannuation Funds Connect with Their Members Cheuk Lee Mercer Consulting |
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13:00 – 14:00 |
Lunch |
Foyer |
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14:00 – 15:30 |
SESSION 3 |
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Session 3A Gender and Wellbeing Chair: Trang Le (UNSW Sydney) |
Session 3B Housing and Retirement Chair: Kaja Kierulf (UNSW Sydney) |
Session 3C Mortality Inequality Chair: Francesco Ungolo (UNSW Sydney) |
Colombo A, B, C |
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The Invisible Crisis: Women, Retirement and Risk Anne-Marie Elias UTS |
Superannuation and other Financial Wealth of those Approaching Retirement: Insights from HILDA Gaoyun (Sophie) Yan ASFA
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Age-Period Modeling of Mortality Gaps: The Cases of Cancer and Circulatory Diseases Andrea Nigri University of Foggia |
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The Cost of Not Caring Abby Bloom UTS |
Who Draws on Housing Wealth in Retirement? Evidence from a Public Reverse Mortgage Program in Australia Yunxiao (Chelle) Wang UNSW Sydney |
Forecasting Mortality: Leveraging Cause-of-Death Data through Fully Connected Neural Network Dion Krisnadi University of Lausanne |
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Mapping a Dignified Retirement to Wellbeing Benedict Davis UniSuper |
Renting in Retirement: Why Rent Assistance Needs to Rise Joseph Moloney Grattan Institute |
Cause-specific Mortality Trends and Inequalities: Pre- and Post-COVID Insights Ayse Arik UNSW Sydney |
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15:30 – 16:00 |
Afternoon Tea |
Foyer |
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16:00 – 17:30 |
SESSION 4 |
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Session 4A Decumulation Strategies Chair: Hanlin Lou (UNSW Sydney) |
Session 4B International Pension Systems Chair: Trang Le (UNSW Sydney) |
Session 4C Mortality Analytics Chair: Andrés Villegas (UNSW Sydney) |
Colombo A, B, C |
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Securing Australia’s Retirement: It’s Time to Protect Retirees from Dud Investment Options Roberta Chen Super Consumers Australia |
Sustainable and Equitable Pension Reform for Emerging Economies: An Application to Indonesia John Piggott UNSW Sydney |
Towards Fairer Retirement Outcomes: Socio-Economic Mortality Differentials and Retirement Product Implications Fei Huang UNSW Sydney |
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The Future of the 60/40 Allocation: Modelling the Performance of the 60/40 Portfolio in Retirement Bei Cui Monash University |
Counteracting the Impact of Societal Ageing on income Inequality: A Case Study of Malaysia Philip O'Keefe UNSW Sydney |
A Universe of Individual-Level Mortality Models Xiaochuan Lu UNSW Sydney |
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Principles for Retirement Modelling Ruvinda Nanayakkara Aware Super
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The Dynamic Evolution of China’s Pension System and Future Prospects and Policy Issues Han Gao UNSW Sydney |
Gradient Boosted Multi-Population Mortality Modelling with High-Frequency Data Han Li University of Melbourne |
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17:30 – 19:00 |
NETWORKING RECEPTION |
Foyer |
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PROGRAM: TUESDAY, 25 NOVEMBER 2025 |
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8:30 – 9:00 |
Arrival and Registration |
Foyer |
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9:00 – 9:05 |
WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS John Piggott, Director, Centre for Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), UNSW Sydney |
Colombo A |
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9:05 – 10:35 |
SESSION 5: PANEL Retirement Choice Architecture Chair: Hazel Bateman (UNSW Sydney) |
Colombo A |
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Panellists: Geoff Warren, The Conexus Institute Joey Moloney, Grattan Institute TBC, Actuaries Institute Katrina Ellis, Super Consumers |
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10:35 –11:00 |
Morning Tea |
Foyer |
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11:00 – 13:00 |
SESSION 6 |
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Session 6A Innovative Retirement Income Streams Chair: Andrés Villegas (UNSW Sydney) |
Session 6B Retirement Outcomes Chair: Francesco Ungolo (UNSW Sydney) |
Session 6C Annuities Chair: Yang Shen (UNSW Sydney) |
Colombo A, B, C |
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Minimizing Payout Volatility in Longevity Risk-Sharing Pools: An Asset–Liability Matching Approach Manuel Garcia-Huitron Nuova Longevità Research |
Retirement Income Strategy Survey Findings Yolanda Li EY |
Guaranteed Income or Investment-Linked Income: A Framework to Choose the Right Retirement Income Product Philip Clark Azuria Partners |
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Designing Payout Rules under Sociodemographic Inequality in Longevity and Wealth Gayani Thalagoda UNSW Sydney |
Measuring Member Outcomes for Superannuation Funds: Retirement Adequacy and Income Stream Efficiency (RAISE) Shang Wu Aware Super |
Can Improving Longevity Literacy Motivate Interest in Life Annuities? Hanlin Lou UNSW Sydney |
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Risk-Sharing Rules for Mortality Pooling Products with Stochastic and Correlated Mortality Rates Yuxin Zhou UNSW Sydney |
Best Possible Retirement Harry Inwoood CoreData |
Addressing Low Annuity Demand with Capital Taxes Md Khademul Islam Chowdhury ANU |
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Solving for Fear, Not Just Longevity: Demystifying the True Value of Innovative Retirement Income Streams Estelle Liu AMP |
Retirement Affordability: Myths, Maths and the Messy Middle Kaye Fallick Staying Connected |
Financial Advisor Views on Lifetime Annuities Anthony Asher UNSW Sydney |
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13:00 – 13:45 |
Lunch |
Foyer |
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13:45 – 14:45 |
SESSION 7 |
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Session 7A Aged Care and Fairness Chair: Yuxin Zhou (UNSW Sydney) |
Session 7B Retirement and Health Chair: Trang Le (UNSW Sydney) |
Session 7C Behaviour and Decisions Chair: Hanlin Lou (UNSW Sydney) |
Colombo A, B, C |
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Distributional Impact of Means-Test Reform in Residential Aged Care Hengzhe Zhao Macquarie University
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Examining Differences in Bunching at Statutory Retirement Ages in Australia and the Netherlands: Exploring the Role of Firms and Executives Jan Kabatek University of Melbourne |
Eliciting Risk Preferences for Impactful Decisions in the Pension Domain Jorg Goossens Radboud University |
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Learning Fair Decisions with Factor Models: Applications to Annuity Pricing Ran Zhao ANU |
Cohort Trends in Intrinsic Capacity in Europe Meimei Chen Macquarie University
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Income Risk, Self-Control, and Valence-Dependent Updating: A Non-Bayesian Model of Precautionary Saving Behavior Jialing Lin LMU Munich |
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14:45 – 14:50 |
Short break |
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14:50 – 15:50 |
SESSION 8: PLENARY Innovative Retirement Income Streams Chair: Katja Hanewald (UNSW Sydney) |
Colombo A |
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Innovative Retirement Income Streams - To Insure or Not to Insure? Kathryn Spragg Australian Retirement Trust |
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Optimal Hurdle Rate and Investment Policy in Lifetime Pension Pools Jean-François Bégin Simon Fraser University |
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15:50 – 16:00 |
AWARD OF PRIZE FOR BEST STUDENT PRESENTATION AND CLOSING REMARKS Katja Hanewald (UNSW Sydney) |
Colombo A |
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Call for Papers
The Call for Papers has now closed. For queries or to discuss a potential topic, please contact Associate Professor Katja Hanewald at k.hanewald@unsw.edu.au.
Colloquium Convenor
Katja Hanewald, School of Risk & Actuarial Studies, UNSW Sydney
Colloquium Program Committee
Hazel Bateman, CEPAR, School of Risk & Actuarial Studies, UNSW Sydney
David Bell, The Conexus Institute
Katja Hanewald, School of Risk & Actuarial Studies, UNSW Sydney
Hanlin Lou, CEPAR, UNSW Sydney
John Piggott, CEPAR, UNSW Sydney
Yang Shen, School of Risk & Actuarial Studies, UNSW Sydney
Francesco Ungolo, School of Risk & Actuarial Studies, UNSW Sydney
Enquiries: cepar@unsw.edu.au