SEOUL, South Korea — Governments and insurers should collaborate to address the huge effect that massive demographic and social changes will have on global retirement savings systems, a panel of experts said Tuesday.

Without considerable efforts, including tax incentives and extensive education, many people will be inadequately prepared for retirement and face the prospect of a longer working life or poverty in their old age, the experts said.

Developed and emerging economies all face the prospect of an aging population, and few are taking sufficient measures to deal with the problem.

Countries as diverse as South Korea and Italy face significant issues in dealing with aging populations, panelists said during a discussion at the International Insurance Society's annual seminar being held in Seoul, South Korea, this week.

In South Korea, for example, the country has a relatively low retirement age, which recently was raised to 60, and companies are reluctant to keep workers past retirement age because salaries are formally structured to pay more to older workers, said Kichool Park, vice president and director of the retirement research center at Samsung Life Insurance Co. in Seoul.

In addition, while younger people traditionally were willing to look after their parents in retirement, surveys indicate that the children of baby boomers are less willing to look after their parents, he said.

Italy faces the issue of a comparatively old population that receives generous government benefits and it carries a lot of debt, said Lorenzo Savorelli, head of research and development at Trieste, Italy-based Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A.

The country has tried to incentivize people to move retirement savings to the private market and introduced some automatic elements to retirement savings.

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“Despite all these efforts, the results were disappointing. Today, only about one in five Italians belongs to occupational private pension plans and voluntary savings mechanisms, and the assets that have been accumulated are still puny by international comparisons,” Mr. Savorelli said.

The lack of uptake is due to three main reasons, he said: People still believe that the public pension system will provide them with sufficient retirement income, the fiscal incentives were not as aggressive as those in other countries and people in general have a relatively low level of financial understanding.

Fiscal incentives in particular have to be significant to encourage people to increase their personal retirement savings, said Hiroyuki Nishi, director and general manager of international planning and operations at Nippon Life Insurance Co. in Osaka, Japan.

Japan introduced moderate tax incentives for some private retirement savings products, but the takeup was poor, he said.

“We need to have drastic tax incentives on these products. Otherwise, we need to work until we are 70 years old,” Mr. Nishi said.

Even when employees are saving for retirement, their savings often are unlikely to last their life spans, said Jamie Kalamarides, senior vice president of institutional investment solutions at Prudential Financial Inc. in Hartford, Conn.

“In the United States, individuals who take a lump sum from their defined contribution plan at age 65 are normally planning for a 20-year horizon, when in fact they should be planning for a 30- or 35-year horizon; and the challenge is that 50% of them are going to run out of money,” he said.

Employees need to be made aware that, with increased longevity, there is a good chance that they may live into the 90s, Mr. Kalamarides said.

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The insurance industry can be successful in working with governments to educate people about retirement savings, said Cindy Forbes, executive vice president and chief actuary at Toronto-based Manulife Financial Corp. However, education material provided often is too complicated.

“You have to boil it down into simple messages so that people can see how much support they will get from the government,” she said.

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