국민연금의 세대 내·세대 간 형평성 분석과 개혁 방향

Abstract

This paper evaluates the equity of the national pension plan in Korea and proposes the direction for improvement. The equity of the national pension plan can be divided into the equities within and between generations. There already exist previous studies about within and between generation equity issues. However, this study differs from other studies in two aspects. First, unlike the common understanding, this study shows that the current national pension plan has negative effects on income distribution: the upper income class gets more benefits than the lower income class. The regressive income effects are mainly due to the large extent of coverage exclusions. Second, this study discusses that the structure, in which benefits are larger than payments, severely damages the inter generation equity and hinders the sustainability of pension financing. Based on its findings, this study proposes a dual layer pension system consisting of the income proportion part with returns ratio of 1 and the income redistribution part funded by general taxation.