Measures for the Reform and Restructuring of Public Pensions (2022)

This study takes as its starting point an analysis of the current state of the old-age income security system, and then conducts a joint investigation with local experts into the latest pension reforms and institutional arrangements of major European countries that offer meaningful policy implications for Korea.

In the section on foreign cases, Mr. Vidlund Mika, Head of Finland's overseas cooperation team — the team responsible for pension-related cooperation with EU member states, including the Nordic countries — participated in the study and provides a vivid account of current pension operations in major Western European countries (Chapter 5 of the report).

The report also includes highly authoritative and significant content (Chapter 6) on the key pension reforms in Finland — a country whose fertility rate has fallen sharply over the past decade, from 1.8 to 1.4 — contributed by Ismo Risku, Director of Planning and Coordination, who has been directly involved in Finland's pension reform deliberations for more than two decades and most recently served as coordinator of Finland's latest pension reform consultative body.

Through this body of research, the study seeks to provide an objective account of how individual countries — each facing very different circumstances — are responding to the challenge of securing the sustainability of their old-age income security systems, and in particular their pension schemes.

The study aims to identify directions for pension reform on the basis of a neutral assessment of Korea's current situation and the policy implications drawn from analysis of institutional arrangements in other countries.

In addition, the study puts forward proposals for the integrated operation of the special occupational pension schemes — including the Government Employees Pension — and the National Pension, a topic that has received insufficient attention in previous discussions.

The fundamental orientation of this study places greater emphasis on identifying appropriate directions for reform than on specifying detailed implementation measures. This is because it is judged that, without a proper understanding of Korea's actual circumstances, even the most concrete reform proposals would yield limited policy implications.

It is hoped that the findings of this study, developed with this critical awareness in mind, will serve as a useful reference for researchers in related fields and for policymakers engaged in discussions on pension reform.

The appendix to this study contains records of meetings and conversations with various stakeholders in Korean society. It documents the views of diverse members of society on desirable directions for pension reform and on changes in the environment surrounding the pension system.

Given that the appendix contains a substantial amount of material not typically found in conventional research reports, it is expected to serve as a highly valuable reference when substantive and properly grounded discussions on pension reform are undertaken in the future.