90% of Office Workers Interested in Managing Retirement Pensions... Prefer Stable Options

KEF Releases Survey on Office Workers' Perceptions of Retirement Pensions
"Preference for Stability, Not Indifference, Drives Principal-Guaranteed Choices"

Nine out of ten office workers in South Korea are interested in managing their retirement pension funds, and among them, six prefer the most stable management options.

As the government is currently considering various solutions to improve retirement pension returns, the Korea Employers Federation pointed out that the main reason for low returns is not workers' indifference, but rather their perception of retirement pensions as funds for old age and their preference for stable management.

On July 17, the Korea Employers Federation announced the results of its "2025 Office Workers' Retirement Pension Awareness Survey," which was conducted among 1,003 office workers enrolled in retirement pension plans.

The survey found that 90.7% of office workers said they are "interested in managing their pension funds." Among them, 57.1% responded, "I am interested but do not know what to do," while 33.6% said, "I am very interested and well-informed."

In addition, 62.8% of office workers viewed retirement pensions as "funds that should be managed as stably as possible as seed money for life after retirement," making this the most common perception.

Recently, the new government has been considering various solutions, such as the fund-type management of retirement pensions, to increase returns. In particular, research institutes such as the National Pension Research Institute have pointed out that the high proportion of principal-guaranteed products is due to the public's indifference, which results in low retirement pension returns.

A representative from the Korea Employers Federation stated, "Since 90% of respondents said they are interested in managing their pension funds, it is incorrect to analyze that principal-guaranteed management is simply due to subscribers' indifference. Rather, if policy efforts are focused on addressing the 'lack of information' issue, we can expect more active management of pension funds."

As for preferred fund management methods, stable investment type (low risk) was the most popular at 50.1%, followed by principal-guaranteed type (very low risk) at 22.5%, neutral investment type (medium risk) at 21.2%, and aggressive investment type (high risk) at 6.2%.

Regarding future retirement pension payout plans, 37.7% responded that they would "receive part as a lump sum and part as a pension," 32.3% said they would "receive the entire amount monthly as a pension," and 30% said they would "receive the entire amount as a lump sum at once."

The vast majority of office workers enrolled in retirement pensions also manage personal financial assets in addition to their retirement pensions. Only 3% responded that they have "no other financial management methods." The preferred financial management methods were deposits and savings (31.9%), stocks, funds, and bonds (23.5%), insurance and annuities (18.0%), gold and US dollars (10.5%), real estate (8.3%), and virtual assets (4.8%).

Lim Youngtae, head of employment and social policy at the Korea Employers Federation, emphasized, "This survey confirms that the focus on principal-guaranteed management is not due to subscribers' indifference, but rather reflects their preference for stable investments. It is necessary to improve the mandatory subscriber education, which currently focuses on explaining the system itself, so that it is more investment- and management-oriented, thereby encouraging subscribers to actively allocate their assets."