25% of salary to go as pension premiums by 2025.

TOKYO, May 15 Kyodo

Company employees will have to pay 24.8% of their salary as pension premiums if the current pension levels are to be maintained in fiscal 2025, due to the falling birthrate and rapid aging of the population, the health ministry said Wednesday.

According to a ministry estimate submitted to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's pension system panel, the average employee in fiscal 2025 would have to pay nearly twice as much as the current percentage of salary in contributions to the state-run pension scheme.

In an earlier estimate compiled in 1999, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry put the pension contribution burden of an average employee in fiscal 2025 at 21.6% of salary. The revised figures are based on a January estimate of the population in 2050.

In January, the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, a ministry affiliate, estimated Japan's population will have fallen to 100.59 million in 2050 after peaking at 127.74 million in 2006.

As regards pension contributions from self-employed people under the state-run scheme, the ministry estimates they will have to pay 29,600 yen a month in fiscal 2025, or 16,300 yen more than at present.

The nation's social security spending, including medical expenses, are expected to reach 182 trillion yen in fiscal 2025, which will represent 32.5% of the overall national income, up from 22.5% in fiscal 2002, according to the ministry report.