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Journal of Beijing Normal University(Social Sciences) ›› 2025, Vol. 0 ›› Issue (4): 151-160.

• Public Governance • Previous Articles    

Constructing Modern Occupational Pension Systems:Its Functional Orientation, Basic Characteristics and Implementation Pathways

SUN Shouji, XIE Yuantao   

  1. School of Insurance and Economics, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing 100029, China
  • Online:2025-07-25 Published:2025-09-03

Abstract: Traditional enterprise pension plans,primarily aimed at large enterprises and formal employment,struggle to adapt to new forms of employment,resulting in a low participation rate,high operational costs,and an increased gap in pension benefits. With these developmental challenges,the trend in the development of occupational pension is shifting from traditional systems to modern ones. Modern occupational pension systems have five distinct characteristics that achieve a better integration of an effective market and a proactive government. First,they implement an automatic enrollment mechanism to increase the participation rate. Second,the types of plans are diversified to meet the diverse forms of employment. Third,they adopt a platform trustee model to reduce operational costs. Fourth,they selectively open investment choices to meet diverse investment risk preferences. Fifth,they coordinate multi-level pension insurance systems to achieve complementary to the basic pension insurance system. To construct a modern occupational pension system in China,efforts should focus on the following key areas:implementing an automatic enrollment mechanism,building a national-level comprehensive management platform,setting up limited investment options,providing default investment funds,strengthening overall coordination with the basic pension insurance system,and enhancing coordination with the individual pension system. Constructing a modern occupational pension system can better adapt to new forms of employment,narrow the pension gap,achieve sustainable development of multi-level pension insurance systems,and better address the challenges of an aging population.

Key words: modern occupational pension systems, automatic enrollment mechanisms, comprehensive pension management platforms, new forms of employment

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