More than 60 percent of people in Finland think boosting work-based immigration is the best way to improve pension funding, based on the results of a survey published on Thursday by the Finnish Centre for Pensions.
The poll also found that a third of respondents consider raising pension contributions paid by workers and employers to be a good or fairly good option to strengthen pension funding.
An almost equal amount of respondents favoured the idea of boosting pension fund returns by taking risks, like investing more in stocks.
However, about 80 percent said they considered cutting the pensions of current and future retirees to be a fairly bad or bad option.
Raising the retirement age did not appeal to respondents either, with 57 percent considering this a poor solution.
"Certainly, the options that do not significantly affect one's wallet in the near future are the ones most favoured. Measures that reduce income, such as reducing pensions, would affect many people and understandably are viewed negatively," economist Sanna Tenhunen from the Finnish Centre for Pensions said.
Tenhunen added that those involved in shaping pension reform should keep in mind that pension cuts would provoke widespread opposition.
However, one or two measures may not necessarily suffice to achieve the goal. Different measures affect various age and population groups in different ways. Implementing all of them could result in a smaller and more evenly distributed change, Tenhunen opined.
Currently, government and labour organisations are considering pension cuts, aiming to draft a proposal by the end of next year to strengthen public finances by about one billion euros.
About 1,000 people in Finland responded to the Pension Barometer survey, which was conducted in March.
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