Zhou Xiaochuan poked the hornet's nest! Why are young people reluctant to pay social security now? Former central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan rarely made a public statement on this secretive question.
Recently, at the first China Pension Industry Forum, the former governor of the central bank made a rare speech on why young people are unwilling to actively pay social security. He bluntly said that the pressure of China's pension gap is being transmitted to the younger generation layer by layer, and now there are young people who feel that even if they work more, it is difficult to buy a house, get married, and raise children, so they simply lie flat. From the perspective of workers, when the contribution of social security contributions is greater than the benefits obtained, it naturally weakens enthusiasm.
Under the existing nominal personal account, the individual payment is actually used to pool the fund, if the pay-as-you-go system is excessively highlighted, that is, the on-the-job employees pay the pension of the current retired elderly, in the face of the rising dependency ratio, it is inevitable to dissipate the willingness of young people to participate in the system, and even intensify the intergenerational conflict.
Zhou Xiaochuan's words can be said to point out the current situation of China's pension, and it can even be said that it has torn off the fig leaf and stabbed the hornet's nest. It can be said that China's pay-as-you-go pension system has not been reformed, and the empty account of China's pension will only get bigger and bigger.
Why are young people reluctant to pay Social Security? It is not because young people are selfish and ignore the overall situation, and only focus on immediate interests and do not care about the long-term. It is because there are indeed big problems in China's pay-as-you-go pension system.
As we all know, China's pension system is a foreign product and a special system design. As soon as the pay-as-you-go system model was established, there was an empty account. Many retirees who are now receiving high pensions have not paid social security before, but after retirement according to the pension system, they can directly pay according to the pension system and can directly receive pensions.
And where does the money come from for these retirees who currently receive high pensions? Is it given by the treasury?
No. It is currently paid by the social security that we young people pay every month. According to the current system design, each of us pays social security into two accounts, our monthly social security is into the personal pooled account, and the enterprise pays into the pooled account. The normal logic is that the pension you can receive in the future is paid by the social security fund that you have been paying in these two accounts when you were young.
But now the reality is that the money in these two accounts does not enter the personal account according to the current pay-as-you-go pension system model, but is distributed to the retired elderly. To put it bluntly, the social security you pay every month is actually supporting the current retirees. And the pension you can receive in the future can only rely on the social security contributions of the young people in the future.
Therefore, this leads to a deficit in China's pension at the beginning, and there will be a contradiction of intergenerational transfer. As a result of this model, each generation's pension can only be supported by the next generation of young people. At present, China has begun to enter the stage of negative population growth, and the scale of negative population growth is showing a trend of continuous expansion. This means that if China's fertility rate does not change, there will only be fewer and fewer young people in the future. That means that young people in the future will not pay as much social security as they do today.
From this point of view, how can the future pension of our current generation of young people be guaranteed if it is still in accordance with the current pay-as-you-go pension model?
Therefore, at present, many young people complain about social security contributions and are unwilling to actively participate in social security contributions because of practical reasons and concerns.