Issues in pension system design

External conditions for pension system design and demographic and labour market trends are briefly considered and the latter found decisive. Basic concepts, e.g. social assistance and insurance, redistribution and actuarial fairness, are then introduced. Then it is argued that the “public PAYG versus private funded” dichotomy has attracted an unduly large share of attention in recent pension reform debates, as such institutional changes do not really address the basic problems, while quantitative aspects, the relationship between contribution and replacement rates, have been improperly neglected or shielded by the paradigmatic controversy. The next, crucial point is that traditional, employment‐based, earnings‐related forms of pension insurance are endangered by new trends on the labour market; hence, new solutions will have to be sought to ensure pension coverage for the entire population. A brief plea for more, relevant and comparative information on pension issues follows. The paper concludes with a concise summary and by contemplating what could and should be expected from the Second World Assembly on Ageing.