The Pensions That Ate Latin America

Long hailed for its youth and vigor, Latin America is graying fast, raising the specter of fiscal crisis as retirees outnumber the able-bodied workers required to support them. Yet even as a new generation of national leaders seeks to shore up a shaky pillar of the social contract, a rebellion against pension reform is in full cry.

Chileans poured into the streets ahead of this year’s election to roll back free-market-inspired reforms conceived under former dictator Augusto Pinochet. Thousands of Argentines banged pots and pans against President Mauricio Macri’s overhaul of the loss-making pension system that passed congress last month. It’s no better in Brasilia, where a political insurrection is in bloom over pension fixes designed to rescue the country’s fraught finances, and maybe the mandate of beleaguered President Michel Temer in the bargain.