대표적 복지제도인 연금은 성장이 잦아들고 인구가 고령화되면서 각국에서 개혁의 대상이 되고 있다. 연금제도의 지속가능성 문제는 이제 연금제도에 국한된 것이 아니라는 인식 역시 확산되고 있다. 글로벌화된 경제환경 속에서 연금제도의 지속가능성 문제는 국가의 재정건전성, 자본시장의 안정성, 장기적 성장가능성의 문제가 되었다. 1980년대 이후 진행되어 온 연금개혁의 대략적 방향은 보험료 기여와 급여 간 연계를 강화하고, 경제활동을 지속할 유인을 내장하는 것, 적립금 비중을 증가시키는 것, 인구구조 변화가 연금재정에 미치는 영향을 줄이기 위해 확정급여 형태를 약화시키는 구조개혁을 단행하는 것, 사적연금의 역할을 확대하는 개입을 통해 사적연금과 공적부문의 경계를 재설정하는 것 등이다.

우리 역시 짧은 역사 속에서 노후소득보장을 확대하는 것과 동시에 제도의 지속가능성과 공⋅사제도 간 균형발전을 모색해야 하는 과제에 직면하고 있다. 즉, 낮은 급여와 포괄성 부족으로 인해 노인빈곤의 문제를 아직 충분히 해소하지 못한 반면, 구조적 개선도 함께 추구해야 하는 것이다. 그러나 이러한 개혁의 필요에도 불구하고 구체적인 개혁 형태에 대해서는 그간 축적된 내용이 빈약한 상태이다.

본 연구는 이러한 배경 속에서 각국의 개혁 사례를 심도 깊게 파악한 후 우리나라의 공적연금, 기업연금, 개인연금 제도가 발전하는 데 장애가 되고 있는 실제의 병목을 파악하고 개선방향을 제시하는 것을 목표로 하였다. 제1장에서 공적제도에 초점을 맞추되 전체적인 노후소득보장 시스템에 대한 관심을 유지하면서 각국의 제도개혁을 살펴보았고, 이후의 장들은 국민연금, 직역연금, 퇴직⋅개인연금 제도의 문제점과 현황, 향후 개혁방향을 파악했다. 최근에 개혁안이 마련된 공무원연금에 대해서는 개혁의 구체적인 내용과 한계, 향후의 발전방향에 대한 내용을 주로 담았다.

제2장에서는 장기적인 인구변화에 대응한 1980년대 이후 공적연금개혁의 흐름을 전체 노후소득보장체계에 대한 종합적 관점을 유지하면서 국제적으로 조망했다. 이행비용을 최소화하기 위해 부과식 재정방식은 유지하면서, 근로유인 제고를 위한 확정기여형 급여산정방식을 모방하는 제도적 혁신에 주목했다. 즉, 공적연금개혁의 흐름은 급여조정 내지는 연급수급연령 조정을 통해 재정안정을 추구하되, 사각지대를 최소화하고 최소한의 노후소득을 보장하는 방식으로 수렴하고 있는 것으로 진단된다.

제3장은 기초연금을 포함한 우리나라 국민연금의 문제점을 진단하며 선진 외국의 연금체계 및 개혁 추세 등을 분석하고, 이에 기초하여 개선방향으로서 모수적 개혁방안과 구조적 개혁방안을 설정하고 그 가능성과 한계를 명확히 비교⋅검토했다. 노인빈곤위기와 연금재정위기를 해결하는 데 있어 모수적 개혁이나 구조적 개혁 모두 나름의 장점과 한계가 있으므로 신중한 사회적 합의가 필요하다는 점이 강조되고 있다.

직역연금을 다룬 제4장에서는 2014년 초 정부가 주도하여 시작한 공무원연금제도 개혁의 구체적 성과와 한계를 개괄한 후 직연연금의 향후 개혁방향을 제시했다. 공무원연금 개혁은 수익비 관점에서 바라보면, 수지균형을 달성하지 못하고 20년에 걸친 연금지급률 하향 조정 등으로 수익비 개선효과가 서서히 발생하기 때문에 미흡하다고 평가되며, 연금재정 관점에서는 보전금을 감소시키고 가입자 세대 간 형평성을 제고했다는 점이 긍정적으로 평가된다.
그러나 장기재정 절약효과가 미흡하고 구조개혁을 위한 재정 관련 기본 틀이 구축되지 않은 것 등은 금번 개혁의 한계점이다. 이러한 점을 함께 고려한 직역연금 전반의 개혁방향으로는 재정건전성 확보가 우선적으로 꼽힌다.

제5장에서 다룬 퇴직연금과 개인연금 또한 공통적으로 연금 사각지대 문제, 낮은 유지율, 부족한 소득대체율 및 저조한 자산운용 수익률, 연금소유자에 대한 교육 및 지원의 미흡, 감독체계의 미흡 등 현실적으로 많은 문제점들을 가지고 있다.

이러한 문제점들은 저소득층에 대한 보조금제도를 도입하여 연금 사각지대를 해소하고, 노사가 자산운용에 좀 더 적극적으로 참여하도록 지배구조를 개선하여 기금형 제도를 도입하며, 근로자들이 추가기여를 하도록 하는 유인을 주면서 금융교육을 강화하는 제도개선을 통해 완화될 수 있다. 중간정산이나 중도해지를 전면적으로 금지하여 퇴직연금의 통산성을 강화하고 연금자산의 실물이전(Portability)을 용이하게 하는 제도개선 역시 중요하다. 일시금 수령 비율을 줄이고 연금수령을 유도할 수 있는 방안과 3층 체계를 아우른 통합적인 연금감독체계 역시 시급하다.

Chapter 1. Tasks for Sustainable Multi-pillar Retirement Income System
　The consequences of changes in economic circumstances combined with long-term demographic strains have raised profound policy-related questions about the sustainability of pension and retirement income. Countries are growing increasingly uneasy about their capacity to deliver retirement income to the elderly, and the debate about pension provision has shifted back to individual responsibility.
　In Korea, where the extended family was the major sources of supplemental old-age income support, the common three-pillar system of retirement income hardly ever exists. Formal social security and pension systems are relatively underdeveloped in both coverage and protection.
　The difficulty is that we should keep the elderly out of poverty by expanding public pension at the same time as we pursue pension reform to make it more efficient.
　Against this backdrop, this study looked at the provision of retirement income through public pensions, occupational pensions, employe/individual saving in Korea and then tries to design the reform path in prospect. The reform experiences around the world were examined, and obstacles for developing each pillar were identified.


Chapter 2. Pension Reforms Around the World
　In this paper, we provide an historical and international perspective on the worldwide pension reforms since the 1980s. In response to the persistent declines in mortality and fertility rate as well as the labor force participation rate among the elderly during the twentieth century, it was inevitable to adjust the PAYGO public pension systems across the world. In the late 1990s and the early 2000s, many Latin American countries and the ex-communist countries introduced the mandatory funded individual accounts, but those policy experiments put too much emphasis on the marginal benefits such as enhancing economic efficiency and providing more choices to individuals, not on consumption smoothing, poverty relief, and insurance, all of which are the ultimate objectives of any pension system. After the 2008-9 international financial crises and the ensuing economic downturns, some of those countries which implemented the funded individual accounts returned to their pre-reform PAYGO system by making the funded individual accounts smaller or by abolishing them because the marginal benefits are limited at best whereas the transition costs were generally high. More recently, some countries implemented innovative pension reform which maintains the PAYGO financing to minimize the transition costs while mimicking defined contribution system, which can help to enhance work incentives. Those reforms include the Notional Defined Contribution system topped up with a small funded component, and a variety of automatic adjustment mechanisms. The recent trends in pension reform appear to converge to a single model of quasi-defined-benefit system which ensures sustainability by adjusting benefits and pensionable ages in accordance with changing economic environments, while providing basic retirement income to the elderly in order to close the coverage gap. However, it is recommended that, in response to the population ageing, each country should adjust the public pension system in a way that best suits its own policy objectives and initial conditions, as there is no first-best solution to pension problems.


Chapter 3. Challenges and the Future Reforms of the National Pension Scheme
　There faces a crisis of the old-age poverty which is driven by immature national pension, and a crisis of the financial sustainability in pension scheme as a result of population ageing in Korea. However, comprehensive alternatives have not been analyzed to solve these crisis synthetically. This study is initiated to diagnose problems of the national pension system(including the basic pension system), and examine the recent experience in reforms of developed countries, including their pension system. Based on the analysis, This study provides a parametric and structural reform of the national pension system, including possibilities and limitations regarding these reforms.
　Results of this study are as follows; Both parametric and structural reforms have their own limitations and advantages, therefore cautious social consensus is needed when the pension reform is implemented. Specifically, the parametric reform in its primary focus on financial stabilization of the pension can contribute to improving financial sustainability in the national pension scheme, but has an operational problems in huge funds as well as problem in the old-age poverty, including the blind zone. On the other hand, by restructuring the pension scheme, the structural reform has advantages that can resolve the poverty in current generations of the elderly and secure the long-term financial sustainability in the pension scheme. But the structural reform has a fiscal burden in the pension scheme, and the resistance as a result of reforming the national pension system.


Chapter 4. Reform Direction and Tasks for Korea’s Occupational Pension Schemes
　The impact of the 2015 parametric reform of the Government Employee Pension (GEP) will be less than significant. Taking place over a 20-year period, the effect of the lowered income replacement rate on driving down the cost-benefit ratio will be slow and incremental and insufficient to steer the GEP to a balanced benefit-contribution structure. From the financial perspective, the reform implies a positive impact―a cut in the amount the government has to pay in subsidies (from general tax revenues) by 40 percent over the period between 2016 and 2085. It can also be viewed as a move toward equity across public employees of different generations and income levels, as the GEP now factors in a redistributive element in its benefit formula.
　The reform has brought a number of achievements. First, it has brought the issue of GEP into the realm of public discussion with increased demand for transparency. Second, the reform can be taken to have laid a systematic procedural framework. Third, it has helped improve the comparability of the GEP with the other public pension schemes. Fourth, by trimming down the short- to mid-term burden of financing the GEP, the reform has established a foundation for further reform. Fifth, the reform has frozen the benefit amount for current GEP recipients and, to a substantial extent, cut the future benefits of current civil servants.
　Several limitations remain, however. First, no basic financial framework has yet been established for structural pension reform. Second, an adequate framework has yet to be laid for multi-pillar old-age income security. Third, the reform still leaves much to be desired in terms of its impact on long-term financial sustainability. Fourth, the reform process has been mechanical at best and dominated by particular interest groups. Fifth, proceeded in lockstep with the interests of political parties, the reform has engendered social tension to a needless degree. Sixth, the financial projection on which the reform has been based is limited to national mortality database. Seventh, the reform has done little to ensure equity across different participants of different public pension schemes.


Chapter 5. The Reform of Korean Private Pension
　In order to establish strong three pillar retirement system, Korean private pension should be focused and enhanced because Korean National Pension system has inherent instability of partial funded system. However, Korean private pension system which consists of 2nd pillar mandatory occupational pension and 3rd pillar personal pension also has severe problems, too. The problems are low sustainability, low income replacement ratio, pension dead zone, low rate of return in investment, lack of financial education for pension consumer, and inefficient pension supervision system.
　In order to dissolve these problems, it is necessary to introduce subsidy to low income class like Riester pension of Germany, to change governance of private pension by introducing Board of trustees system, to give extra incentive for additional contributions. For consumer protection, it is also necessary to educate pension consumer about pension products and risk management, and to introduce more sophisticated default option. It may be better to introduce discretionary investment scheme into private pension.
　The most important thing to do is to prohibit early withdrawal in private pension. In Korea, people can withdraw money from pension account almost without limitations. It impedes private pension to work as retirement income for the future. In order to improve the efficiency of private pension system, the portability of pension between financial companies should be allowed. The new method in withdrawal stage such as programmed withdrawal is needed in order to discourage lump sum payment. The total integrated pension supervision system including National Pension and private pension should be established for better and efficient pension management.
　Korean government has given priority on Korean National Pension rather than private pension until now. However, Korean National Pension’s future is not optimistic because it is expected to be depleted in 2060. So the role of private pension should be emphasized and enlarged. Korean government need invent new way of integrating three pillar pensions.

발간사
요 약

제1장 서 론 (윤희숙)

제2장 각국의 공적연금 개혁: 인구고령화와 정책대응 (김도형)
　제1절머리말
　제2절인구변천의 심화와 연금정책적 대응
　제3절부과식에서 적립식 제도로의 이행
　제4절부과식 제도를 유지한 국가들의 대응
　제5절맺음말
　참고문헌
　부 록

제3장 국민연금의 개혁방향과 과제 (이용하⋅최옥금⋅김형수)
　제1절들어가는 말
　제2절국민연금제도의 현황과 문제점
　제3절OECD 국가 연금체계의 유형화와 개혁동향
　제4절국민연금의 개혁방안 검토
　제5절요약 및 결론
　참고문헌

제4장 직역연금의 개혁 방향과 과제 (김상호)
　제1절들어가는 말
　제2절공무원연금 개혁 내용
　제3절공무원연금 개혁 평가
　제4절직역연금의 문제점
　제5절직역연금의 개혁방향
　제6절직역연금의 과제
　참고문헌

제5장 퇴직연금과 개인연금의 개혁 방향과 과제 (이태호)
　제1절 서 론
　제2절 퇴직연금과 개인연금의 현황
　제3절 퇴직연금과 개인연금 제도의 문제점
　제4절 퇴직연금과 개인연금의 제도개선 방안
　제5절 소 결
　참고문헌

ABSTRACT