Paying Less Means Receiving Less? Can Contributing More Lead to Higher Benefits? (July 10, 2026)
(Attached below is an interview with a member of the Pension Future Forum
regarding the National Pension Research Institute's report
assessing the 2025 OECD report.)
Experts propose structural reform linking the National Pension to the Basic Pension as a realistic alternative, rather than focusing solely on the National Pension itself.
[Park Jong-sang / Professor, Department of Economics, Sookmyung Women's University: There are individuals who were not able to enroll in the National Pension until the age of 40 or 50 because the scheme did not yet exist, or who were unable to join at all. For such individuals, raising the income replacement rate provides little benefit. A thicker provision of the Basic Pension for those in greater poverty would be preferable…]
A proposal to raise the contribution ceiling to the level of the Government Employees Pension—so that contributing more yields higher benefits—is also being discussed.
[Yoon Seok-myung / Honorary Research Fellow, Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA): Structural reform appears to be the only path to securing adequate old-age income alongside intergenerational coexistence. If the system were converted to a fully earnings-proportional pension as in other OECD member countries, and if the mandatory contribution age were raised to 64 through labor market reform…]
