The Effectiveness of the Multi-Pillar Pension System in Providing Adequate Old-Age Income Security

Abstract

This study attempts to empirically analyze whether the current multi-pillar pension system can effectively compensate for the reduced role of the National Pension program and provide adequate old-age income protection in South Korea. This study finds that overall the role of corporate retirement pension remains very limited and that the proportion of persons not having the National Pension entitlement is significant for early birth cohorts. However, the data also indicate that, for recent birth cohorts, the proportion of dual pensioners increases significantly. Similar to the analysis of take-up rates, income replacement rates also significantly vary across birth cohorts. For early birth cohorts, the multi-pillar pension system is not effective due to the low level of the National Pension benefit and the low take-up of corporate retirement pension but, for recent birth cohorts, the public-private pension mix shows better performances. However, even for recent birth cohorts, the current multi-pillar pension system may not provide an adequate income replacement rate and therefore additional policy actions are needed to address adequate old-age income protection such as active labor-market policies for older workers.