Last Year, 70,000 People Broke Their Retirement Pension... 65% Due to 'House Purchase or Deposit Preparation'

2020 Retirement Pension Statistics

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Son Seonhee] Last year, nearly 70,000 people withdrew their retirement pensions early. Among them, about 65%, approximately 45,000 people, broke their retirement pensions for reasons related to housing, such as buying a house or preparing a deposit.

According to the "2020 Retirement Pension Statistics" released by Statistics Korea on the 23rd, the number of early withdrawals from retirement pensions last year totaled 69,139, a decrease of about 4,000 people (5.1%) compared to 2019. The amount withdrawn early from retirement pensions decreased by about 5.6%, from 2.8 trillion won in 2019 to 2.6 trillion won last year.

The reason for early withdrawal was most commonly "house purchase," accounting for 42.3% (29,231 people) by number and 46.3% by amount. This represents an increase of about 32.7% in the number of people compared to one year earlier.

On the other hand, the proportion of respondents who withdrew retirement pensions early for "long-term care" purposes decreased by more than 40% compared to 2019.

By age group, those in their 30s accounted for the largest share of early retirement pension withdrawals at 40.7%, followed by those in their 40s at 33.3%, and those in their 50s at 17.4%. By amount, those in their 40s accounted for 36.7%, followed by those in their 50s at 29.8%, and those in their 30s at 27.4%.

Regarding withdrawal reasons, people in their 20s most frequently cited "housing rental" purposes, those in their 30s and 40s cited "house purchase," and those aged 50 and above cited "long-term care" as the most common reasons.

Last year, the total accumulated amount in retirement pensions increased by 16.1% from the previous year to 255 trillion won. Defined Benefit plans accounted for 60.3%, followed by Defined Contribution plans (25.6%), Individual Retirement Pensions (13.7%), and IRP exceptions (0.4%).

Of the accumulated funds, 86.1% were managed as principal-guaranteed types, and 10.7% as performance-based types. Banks managed half of the total (50.8%), followed by life insurance companies at 22.6%, securities companies at 20.2%, non-life insurance companies at 5.2%, and the Korea Workers' Compensation & Welfare Service at 1.2%.

The number of workplaces that introduced the retirement pension system increased by 11,000 from a year earlier to 408,000. The introduction rate slightly declined by 0.3 percentage points to 27.2% compared to the previous year.

The total number of enrolled workers was 6,648,000, an increase of 4.3% from a year earlier. The enrollment rate was 52.4%.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.