Pensions for the younger generations in Germany are more secure than the general public believes, according to the leading representative of the scheme.
"The challenge is smaller than previously predicted," President of the German Pension Insurance Company Gundula Rossbach told Sunday's edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung broadsheet newspaper in comments seen in advance by dpa.
"Overall, we expect that the increase in the old-age dependency ratio, that is the ratio of working people to pensioners, will not be greater in the next few years than in the years 1990 to 2010.
"The pension insurance scheme has coped well with this change and has also shouldered the additional financial requirements in connection with reunification," Rossbach said.
And since the beginning of the noughties, contribution rates have also remained stable, she added.
Immigration into the labour market has been higher than expected, so more people are paying into the pension insurance scheme, Rossbach continued.
In addition, life expectancy is no longer increasing as much as before, so pension payments are therefore likely to be extended less, she said. "We are in a good position."