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The story
A survey on social security awareness among junior high and high school students, reported by Bengoshi JP News, found that 56% of respondents said they don’t want to pay pension premiums in the future. This is the first nationwide survey of its kind targeting students from junior high through high school, and it also revealed a stark gap in how convinced students are of the pension system depending on whether they’d learned about it in class. On 5channel, a lively debate broke out over whether the pension system truly amounts to a “losing bet,” or whether it’s actually a good deal once benefits like disability pensions are factored in — with the discussion ranging from welfare (seikatsu hogo) comparisons to whether self-directed investing through NISA (Japan’s tax-free investment account) would be a better bet.
56% of Junior High and High School Students Say “I Don’t Want to Pay Pension Premiums”… Fears of “Intergenerational Unfairness,” With a Big Gap in “Understanding” Depending on Whether They Learned About It in Class | Bengoshi JP News
Tetsuya Enokizono, September 1, 2026, 17:58
“I don’t want to pay pension premiums in the future.” The anxiety teenagers feel about social security has now been quantified by a “Survey on Social Security Awareness Among Junior High and High School Students.” This is the first nationwide survey of its kind covering students from junior high through high school.
Source: ben54.jp / Original article here
What people said
The right to receive it is basically worthless anyway, so refusing to pay isn't a problem at all
That's exactly what's led to today's elderly with no pension
Well, welfare (namapo, slang for public assistance) bails them out though
Back then national pension premiums were cheap, so not paying was just plain stupid
Even at minimum wage, 50 years ago you could cover it with 4 hours of work
Nowadays even 16 hours' worth of pay from two full workdays won't cover it
Maybe you could in Tokyo though…
You think so?
By the time today's junior high schoolers start collecting their pension, I think they'll be sitting pretty.
Either way, the Ice Age Generation (the "employment ice age" cohort who graduated into Japan's lost decades) is absorbing all the downside, so I don't think anyone after them loses out.
The fact that it includes disability pension already means it's not a 100% loss.
Don't tell me you're equating welfare with disability pension, lol.
The amount of freedom you have in your life is worlds apart.
Most people end up receiving more in pension than they paid in
How is that a loss??
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has long maintained that pension premiums aren't savings but a way of supporting today's elderly, and that calling it a "losing bet" completely misses the point
I'll just invest it myself
There's no self-directed investment strategy that guarantees better returns than the pension, so…
Best to pay into the pension AND invest on top of it
Investing isn't guaranteed to succeed either
Even with All-Country funds (Orukan, a popular low-cost global index fund), who knows what things look like in 30 or 40 years
People saying they don't need a pension clearly haven't thought this through
Well, without any real-world experience, plenty of kids fall for the idea that "we young people are just getting screwed! I don't wanna pay into the pension!"
I felt the same way back in middle/high school after seeing those images posted on 2channel showing pensions as a plus for old people and a minus for the young, lol
The remaining 70% work at small and mid-sized companies
↑ Is that a 2x gap?
What about the self-employed?
Especially now that we have NISA
NISA isn't guaranteed to grow either, and the contribution limit caps out at 18 million yen
Sure, it'd be great if it grew to 100 or 200 million yen like those simulations you always see
What are they gonna do if something like the Lehman Shock hits?
Your principal would take a nosedive instantly
It bounced right back afterward, and has kept hitting new highs ever since though
I made it through the Lehman Shock and I'm still in the black, though?
If you've been investing for years, even during a crash your gains can still be 5x, so I don't worry about it much
Even without a pension, there's still welfare
And as a safety net, welfare actually lets you live better
Unless that imbalance gets fixed, I think the number of people arguing pensions are unnecessary will keep growing
It's true that a pension plan built around paying in for 37 years from age 18 to 55 and collecting from 60 to 70 is collapsing thanks to the average lifespan now being 85
That said, if you wanted it to guarantee a standard of living equal to your working years, you'd need to put half your earnings into premiums
And on top of that, health insurance and long-term care insurance hit you hard too, lol
Abolish it? …There's no way that could actually happen
That's not really the problem — the real issue is that a shrinking working-age population has to support a growing number of pension recipients because of the low birthrate and aging population
Though of course there's also the "vanished pensions" scandal on top of that
If pensions were abolished, kids would end up taking care of their parents like in the old days
Back then, the eldest son's family would stay with the parents to look after them, or if they'd moved to the city, they'd take the parents in
Nowadays with fewer children, a married couple would end up taking in and caring for both sets of aging parents — and since nobody wants that, the pension system was created
If a parent becomes bedridden it gets even more of a hassle, so long-term care insurance was created to deal with that
If you scrap both pension systems and refuse to take care of them, parents will have to start taking defensive measures of their own
Like kicking kids out after junior high, not having kids in the first place, or thinking "prison offers a better life than this"… and acting on it
None of that existed back in the day
Oh I know alright, back in the bubble era just parking your money in a post office account earned you 8% interest
With child allowances and stuff you get 3 million yen by age 18, plus 75,000 yen a month in daycare subsidies per kid, lol
Just from that alone you're getting at least 7 million yen
Backlash floods in over 72-year-old Waseda University professor emeritus's "generational divide" post
https://jisin.jp/domestic/2530364/?rf=2
For me, having just over 10,000 yen taken out of my 170,000 yen paycheck was brutal
A little over 10,000 yen at age 20 is worth something like 300,000 yen at 65
Even counting the roughly 1.7 million yen a year including the employer's contribution, there's just no way you're getting that back, however you look at it
National pension premiums are around 18,000 yen a month these days
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Japan’s public pension system isn’t a funded savings scheme — it runs on a “pay-as-you-go” basis, where premiums from the working generation support today’s elderly, and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare maintains that viewing it as a “losing bet” misses the point. The thread tends to reduce this to a simple win/lose calculation, but it’s easy to overlook that the pension covers not just old-age benefits but also protections like disability and survivor pensions, meaning a straight comparison of premiums paid versus benefits received doesn’t capture the full picture. This survey is also the first nationwide one to target junior high and high school students, and the finding that having learned about the system in class affects how convinced students are suggests a need for better financial and social security education. That said, the original article doesn’t break down specific figures by generation, so how large the gap actually is will have to wait for more detailed disclosures.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5channel (News Speed+) thread “56% of Junior High and High School Students Say They Don’t Want to Pay Pension Premiums… Fears of Intergenerational Unfairness, With a Big Gap in Understanding Depending on Whether They Learned About It in Class.”
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