A scoping review of factors determining voluntary private pension participation in the western Balkans

This paper provides a comprehensive review of determinants of retirement planning, savings behaviour, and participation in voluntary private pension schemes among individuals, identifying both individual-level and institutional drivers of retirement decision-making. The aim of this study is to systematically identify and synthesise key determinants shaping voluntary private pension enrolment, with a particular focus on research gaps in the Western Balkans. The study applies a scoping literature review methodology to identify individual participation behaviour in voluntary pension funds, drawing on seminal and recent contributions from economics, behavioural finance, and public policy. We identify a range of factors that influence retirement planning, including demographic characteristics, financial literacy, behavioural biases, and institutional features. At the individual level, we explore demographic, social, and behavioural variables, as well as the role of financial literacy in shaping attitudes toward long-term saving. We consider structured institutional factors, such as automatic enrolment and employer matching, and how these features influence participation in private pension schemes. We also note that research does not attribute major impact to a single determinant, but rather to a broader domain or to frictions within rational behaviour. Our synthesis highlights that, while determinants are broadly consistent across countries, their relative importance is mediated by institutional quality and cultural context. In the Western Balkans, limited trust in financial institutions, low financial literacy, and historical reliance on public pensions emerge as barriers to voluntary pension participation. This paper contributes to the literature by explicitly integrating behavioural, demographic, and institutional perspectives into a unified analytical framework for understanding pension participation. We highlight the Western Balkans as an under-researched region and recommend further engagement to understand the key determinants of individual private pension enrolment.