퇴직연금제도 도입 기업의 특성 분석 = Reasons for the Slow Adoption of Retirement Pension Plans by Korean Firms

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The passage of The Workers` Retirement Benefit Guarantee Act in 2005 marked South Korea`s first official legislation requiring a comprehensive retirement pension plan. Although six years have passed since the plan`s introduction, only 16.2% of firms with five or more workers had adopted the pension plan by the end of October 2011. In this study, we examine the factors affecting the plan`s introduction and pension type choices by using empirical data from a Workplace Panel Survey in both 2005 and 2007. Our results find that labor unions negatively affect a smooth implementation of the pension plan, while a company`s agreement to stabilize employment produces a positive effect. Potential explanations include the possibility that the agreement process between management and labor speeds the adoption of a retirement pension plan. Another observed trend is that the higher a firm`s sales, the greater is its likelihood of choosing DB pensions. Similarly, the higher a firm`s labor costs per capita, the greater is its likelihood of choosing DC pensions. Finally, as the current retirement pension market structures are weighted towards the DB pension type, the institutional tools affecting firms` financial structures must change in order to promote other types of pension plans.