On 4 August 2011 the Japanese Diet passed an amendment enabling company employees to contribute to corporate defined contribution pension plans. Until then only employers were able to contribute. As a result of the amendment, however, plan participants are able since January 2012 to make their...

In Japan, the steady aging of the population dictates that whatever the outcome of the current debate on public pension reform, private pensions will become more important. Traditional defined benefit (DB) corporate pensions are unlikely to become more prevalent than they are today, however, due...

The Central Provident Fund (CPF), Singapore's public pension, is a prefunded, defined contribution pension plan. As average longevity increased, policy makers grew concerned over the fact that participants bear the burden from longevity risk, and a new program to annuitize a portion of CPF...

Japan's public pension system underwent radical reforms in 2004, and the results of the first financial review under the new regime were released in February 2009. Although the review concluded that systemic revisions were unnecessary, some observers have criticized the report for its use of...

Japan had over 3.21 million people enrolled in defined contribution (DC) plans as of end-March 2009. Although the plans are steadily gaining in popularity, there are still a number of issues that must be worked out. In this article, we propose some fundamental DC reforms, including making...

Within Japan's aging society, public pensions in which the working generation supports retirees will by necessity play a reduced role, while corporate pensions will gradually become more important. Among corporate pensions, traditional defined benefit plans have changed dramatically since...

The FY2014 tax reforms in Japan raised the maximum contribution to corporate defined contribution plans and extended the suspension of the special corporate tax applied to corporate pension assets. Demographic aging is making it increasingly important for Japanese to build up assets to fund...

January 2014 saw the launch in Japan of the Nippon Individual Savings Account (NISA) program. There are high hopes that this will encourage more young people to invest. However, there was unanimous agreement among the university students who took part as panelists in a series of seminars...

Japan, with its declining birthrate and aging population, must inevitably reduce the role of public pensions and seek a more prominent role for private pension plans. This report presents the recent developments in the reform of the defined contribution (DC) pension system in Japan. With...

In Japan there are tight restrictions on the early withdrawal of defined contribution pension plan assets. In this paper we propose a system to allow participants in such plans to withdraw or borrow against their plan assets in the event of a disaster such as the one that struck Japan on 11...