Two funds, two different illnesses: why a single remedy would doom the reform?
Twenty years ago, every Tunisian retiree depended on the contributions of nearly six workers. That figure collapsed, and with it the balance of a generational pact that has stood for half a century. But the most surprising thing is not the severity of the illness. It is that this is not a single disease.
An intergenerational pact that is crumbling
The principle is simple: today’s workers pay today’s pensions, hoping that tomorrow’s workers will do the same. This pay-as-you-go mechanism worked as long as society was young. The ratio of contributing workers to pensioners fell from 5.75 in 2001 to 2.91 in 2016, then to 2.28 in 2022. Meanwhile, life expectancy rose and fertility declined, so pensions are paid for longer even as the funding base stagnates.
The projections of the National Institute of Statistics show that those aged over 60 will cross those under 15 around 2036. By 2044, there will be only 238 working-age people for every 100 seniors, compared with 463 in 2019. In other words, the burden borne by each formal worker will almost double.
Empty funds and exploding debt
The financial figures are dizzying. The net cumulative deficit of the National Social Security Fund (CNSS, private sector) and the National Pension and Social Welfare Fund (CNRPS, public sector) reached 1.54 billion dinars in 2022. Their joint debt rose from 2.44 billion in 2016 to 15.46 billion in 2022. Technical reserves, meant to cover several years of benefits, have been exhausted since 2013.
These findings come from a study published in July 2026 in the International Journal of Innovative Inventions in Social Science and Humanities. The author combines historical analysis, econometric modeling for the period 1990 to 2024, and simulations to compare the country’s two major funds.
The private sector is choking, the public sector clings to the State
Here the angle becomes unexpected. According to the study, the CNSS and the CNRPS do not suffer from the same ailments. The former is a highly sensitive organism: it reacts quickly and strongly to shocks in the labor market.
Unemployment, which stands at 15.4% in the third quarter of 2025, and informality, which absorbs 38% of employment, widen its deficits almost immediately. A surge in unemployment degrades its balance by 1.68 percentage points accumulated over ten periods, compared with barely 0.05 for the public fund.
The latter is a heavy, inert machine. Shielded from informality by the nature of its affiliates, it adjusts slowly and depends on growth and budget transfers.
An uptick in economic activity improves its balance by 2.62 points, versus 1.03 for the CNSS. Treasury advances, which were supposed to smooth the difficulties, have become a permanent financing mode that masks, according to the author, technical insolvency.
Working longer, the most powerful lever
