National Pension couples, USA News (Seoul, South Korea): Working couples enrolled in different public pension systems, such as the National Pension and the Civil Service Pension, receive 100% of their survivor’s pension if their spouse passes away, whereas couples enrolled in the same pension system face reductions of up to 70%, according to recent findings.
On October 30, the National Pension Service stated that specialized researcher Yoo Hyun-kyung and chief researcher Lee Ye-in of the National Pension Research Institute pointed out this structural discrepancy in survivor’s pension benefits in a research report titled “Adjustment of Overlapping Survivor’s Pension Benefits Between Occupational Pensions and the National Pension,” published recently in the ‘Pension Forum.’ The report stated that the current public pension system creates imbalances because it applies different reduction criteria depending on the type of system in which the individual is enrolled.
Currently, if a couple both receive the general National Pension and one passes away, the surviving spouse can receive their own old-age pension plus only 30% of the deceased spouse’s survivor’s pension. This is because the National Pension Act includes provisions to restrict payments when one person becomes eligible for two or more types of benefits to prevent excessive overlapping receipts.
Reduction rules also apply to couples who are both enrolled in the same occupational pension, such as civil servants, military personnel, or private school staff. In these cases, the law restricts the survivor’s pension benefit to 50% of the deceased spouse’s amount. This serves as a threshold to prevent individuals from collecting excessive pension benefits funded by public finances.
On the other hand, cross-enrolled couples, where one spouse is in the National Pension and the other is in an occupational pension like the Civil Service Pension, are not subject to these reductions. When one spouse passes away, the survivor receives 100% of their own pension and 100% of the deceased spouse’s survivor’s pension, without a single won being deducted. Even though both couples have worked and paid insurance premiums for their entire lives, a gap exists where some receive a reduced amount while others collect the full benefit depending on the type of pension.
International Comparison of Pension Systems
Major countries abroad operate strict systems to reduce survivor’s pensions when pension eligibility overlaps, even if they manage general public pensions and civil servant-specific pensions separately. In Germany, if the deceased spouse was a subscriber to the public pension, the survivor’s income level is assessed; if their income or pension exceeds a certain threshold, 40% of the excess amount is deducted from the survivor’s pension.
In Germany, when a spouse who was a civil servant passes away, if the total combined amount of the survivor’s pension and their own pension exceeds a certain ceiling, the survivor’s pension is reduced by the excess amount. This is a method of adjustment based on the total receipt amount and income level, regardless of the system the individual is enrolled in.
Belgium also applies strict reduction criteria regardless of whether the deceased spouse was a general employee or a civil servant. The system is designed so that if the sum of the survivor’s own pension and the survivor’s pension exceeds a maximum limit set by law, the excess is deducted from the survivor’s pension payment.
France is an exception, having a system where civil servant survivor’s pensions are paid in full without reduction. This is because the pension is viewed as an inherent property right accumulated by the couple living together, but even within France, criticism has been raised that it is unfair to provide full amounts to civil servant survivors while applying income-based reductions to survivors of former company employees.
The research team stated that just as the Military Pension Act was recently amended in South Korea to rectify the survivor’s pension reduction system between military personnel and postal service employees, identical and fair adjustment standards should be established between the National Pension and the Civil Service Pension. The team explained that social consensus is needed to establish principles on whether survivor’s pensions should be viewed as a minimum support fund to assist the living expenses of remaining family members or as the joint property of the couple.
