Method
Conjoint and survey experiments
Pension reform is a challenge East Asian welfare states share: institutions must respond to population ageing and fiscal pressure, yet reform stalls in the face of public opinion. This project asks — where do public preferences for pension reform come from, how are they moved by information, and how are they won over by the politics of trade-offs?
Preferences for pension reform are not a simple yes or no. Unpacking them into trade-offs over benefit levels, financing mixes, retirement ages and intergenerational allocation maps the inner structure of public preferences.
Public understanding of pension systems is often limited. When information about system finances, demographic trends and reform consequences is laid out, how do preferences move? This axis examines the role of information in preference formation.
Reform is never a referendum on a single policy; it is an exchange of packages and compensation. Which combinations of trade-offs make painful reform acceptable to the public?