Following the 1990s, the economic and social crisis such as aging population, reduction in productivity, a rise in unemployment, and a hike in atypical employment occurred in many countries. It led to a situation in the imbalance of income and expendi...
Following the 1990s, the economic and social crisis such as aging population, reduction in productivity, a rise in unemployment, and a hike in atypical employment occurred in many countries. It led to a situation in the imbalance of income and expenditure, dubbed a rise in beneficiaries of public pension system and reduction in contribution-base. This leads to a situation of being aggravated the financial demand for public pension system. A concern about the likelihood of failing to secure even adequacy, which is the intrinsic objective of the system as well as the fiscal stability, has facilitated a reform in old-age income security system. Under this financial crisis situation, many countries are carrying out the swayed reform in securing fiscal stability. In this process, it is showing tendency of being damaged adequacy.
However, the reform process, which premised damage of adequacy in this way, is having the following problems. First, a situation that the secondary objective called fiscal stabilization replaces old-age income security, which is the original objective in public pension system, can form feeling of doubt about a reason of existence in public pension system. Second, the reform in fiscal stabilization, which failed to secure adequacy in old-age income, can lead to people's resistance and reform reversal. Third, when the pension entitlement is reduced more than necessary in the process of reform, even the objective of fiscal stability, which was presented the initial reform, can be hindered. In other words, the reform in fiscal stabilization, which isn't secured adequacy, merely transfers the origin and responsibility of a problem from public pension system to other public policy section, but has fundamental limitation in achieving the balance in light of the total public finance that one society will need to inject in supporting the elderly. The discussion in the above implies that there is a need of achieving the balanced performance between adequacy and fiscal stability in order for public pension system to be sustainable.
In this way, to secure sustainability in public pension system based on the balanced performance between adequacy and fiscal stability, the necessity is raised that will cope more directly with a problem of reduction in contribution-base, which caused financial crisis. This is because the necessity of fiscal-stabilization measure is continuously proposed unless it is solved a problem of the contribution-base reduction, which is the fundamental cause of having led to crisis in public pension system, and because the adequacy caused by this cannot help being damaged repetitively. At this time, the social investment policies such as family policy, ALMP(Active Labour Market Policy), and Old-age Services more directly cope with financial-crisis factor through quantitative and qualitative promotion in labor supply, thereby being able to be considered as a strategy of extending contribution-base in public pension system. This is because these policies can increase taxation room in the government by enhancing human capital and supporting the entry to labor market in women, young men, and aged people, which had caused imbalance in both aspects of income and expenditure in public finance due to being excluded from labor market. It can secure the old-age income security function in a certain standard for public pension system available for being damaged in the process of reforming fiscal stabilization based on the resource-extraction capability that was secured through this. This again blocks side effect of a fiscal-stabilization measure like reform reversal or feedback effect, thereby being likely able to perform virtuous-circle function of contributing even to long-term financial balance in the system.
For this reason, many researches are emphasizing employment-extension strategy for expanding contribution-base with pointing out the limitation of fiscal-stabilization measure of being taken within the pension system from the mid-2000s. However, it is the real situation of being lacking yet in the theoretical discussion or empirical grounds that will manifest this as the actual policy measure. Accordingly, this study aimed to elicit its policy-based implication by examining the influence of contribution-base extension strategy upon reform performance in public pension system in the more empirical dimension, and to seek a reform strategy necessary for the swayed countries by a reform of centering on fiscal stabilization like South Korea to achieve the balanced reform performance hereafter, based on this. To achieve the above research objectives, this study progressed largely three kinds of analyses targeting 14 major countries in Europe such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Swiss, England, and Spain from 1990 to 2009. Examining the results briefly, they are as follows.
First, as a result of carrying out Fuzzy-set Ideal Type Analysis in order to calculate the sustainability index, which means the balance status between adequacy and fiscal stability, Sweden(.70), Spain(.58), Norway(.49), Finland(.42), and Holland(.41) showed relatively high sustainability level on the average during the period of the years in 1990-2009. On the other hand, Germany(.04), Italy(.04), Swiss(.08), France(.10), Austria(.11), England(.12), and Belgium(.12) were shown to be much lower level than the whole average(.28).
Second, as a result of carrying out Pooled time series cross-section analysis in order to closely examine causality between contribution-base extension strategy and public-pension sustainability, the contribution-base extension strategies such as family policy, active labor market policy, and old-age services were indicated to have positive influence upon increasing sustainability, which implies adequacy & fiscal stability in public pension system, and the balance between both parties. This outcome implies that the countries with high expenditure level on contribution-base extension strategy can increase fiscal stability of the system in the aspect of coping more directly with a problem of contribution-base reduction, which caused financial crisis in the public pension system, through quantitative and qualitative increase in labor supply, and that the necessity of reform in fiscal stabilization got lower in this process, resulting in what even the generosity in the existing old-age income security system maintained at the relatively high level.
Third, as a result of carrying out Categorical Principal Component Analysis in order to confirm more specifically causality between contribution-base extension strategy and adequacy, the countries such as Sweden and Norway, which achieved the balanced performance between adequacy and fiscal stability, were shown to be high in expenditure level on contribution-base extension strategy and in performance of labor supply according to it. Also, these countries were indicated to have succeeded even in intensively carrying out retirement income safety nets side by side or in vitalizing the accumulated system in the process of reforming fiscal stabilization based on resource-extraction capability that was secured through contribution-base extension strategy.
As examined in the above, the contribution-base extension strategy secures adequacy in the existing system by more directly coping with financial-crisis factor that public pension system faced, and also is already progressed the fiscal-stabilization measure at the considerable level, thereby being able to function as mechanism of normalizing this even in a case of being dropped the old-age income security function. These findings will be able to have implication in having suggested alternative plan that the original old-age income security function in the system can be revived in the process of reforming public pension, which has been cut out according to the balance of earning and expenditure in actuarial calculations.