40% of 18- to 24-year-olds see the main responsibility for their retirement provision with the state. That is quite understandable, because anyone who is young today often starts with rent that already hurts before the first weekly grocery shop. Groceries often cannot simply be paid for without thought, and the labor market does not immediately give every career starter the necessary security. On top of that comes a housing market in which it is very difficult to acquire real ownership.
Precisely for that reason, this figure should make people listen, because it does not show a stupid or lazy generation, but people who sense that the old calculation no longer works and then seek protection precisely where the next bill is already being prepared. The state can raise pensions, pay subsidies, build subsidized products and find new names for old gaps. But it does not stand outside the system. What it distributes later must first come from somewhere.
According to a YouGov survey commissioned by Axa, 35% of adults in Germany see the main responsibility for adequate retirement provision with the state. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, the figure is 40%. At the same time, 51% of respondents said they did not want to rely exclusively on the statutory pension. Many have long known that the statutory pension alone will not be enough. Nevertheless, responsibility again lands with the institution whose promises are paid for through contributions, taxes, debt and inflation.
Why the state seems attractive
The hope placed in the state does not appear out of nowhere. It grows where one’s own room for maneuver is small. Anyone who receives their first real salaryin their early twenties does not first see the pension gap in 2070. They see rent, electricity, insurance, mobility, perhaps a student loan, perhaps the wish for their own apartment and perhaps the first larger car repair. In this situation, private retirement provision often seems very far away.
The Axa survey provides a second figure: the share of people who can save less for retirement because of increased prices rose from 32% in 2023 to 41% in March 2026. That means everyday life is eating up for many people precisely the amount from which wealth for old age would later have to arise. Young people do not need a lecture that they should simply start earlier. Anyone who has hardly any buffer at the end of the month cannot implement a retirement plan. First, income, expenses and reserves must be arranged in such a way that regular saving becomes possible at all.
From exactly this financial tightness, the realization can quickly follow that the state has the better balance sheet. It only appears larger because it does not look like an individual account. Its burdens appear as contribution rates, tax subsidies, the federal budget, special funds or inflationary pressure. That seems very abstract, but in the end it is no less real.
The pension calculation hits the young twice
The statutory pension is a pay-as-you-go system. Today’s workers finance today’s pensioners. This principle works as long as contributors face a manageable number of pensioners. But precisely that is becoming ever more difficult because of ongoing demographic change. Baby-boomer cohorts are retiring, life expectancy remains high, and the number of contributors is not growing at the same pace. For young people this is particularly bitter because they appear twice in the calculation. Today and in the coming decades, they pay contributions into a system that is already supported by high federal subsidies. At the same time, they are supposed to make private provision because no one can seriously claim that the statutory pension will later secure their standard of living. Anyone who hopes for the state is therefore partly hoping for money that their own generation will later have to generate itself.
Politics always talks this fact down. It can promise a stable pension level, limit contribution rates, increase subsidies or present new support models and thereby create the impression that at least something is being done. In reality, however, this only shifts the burdens. If fewer employed people have to finance more pensioners, no additional prosperity is created by a law. Then money is distributed, subsidized, taxed or borrowed. The bill is ultimately always received by the taxpayer and therefore by the currently working generation. Anyone who, after decades of work, receives neither a secure pension from the state nor has made sufficient provision will certainly remain dependent on the state and believe they have a claim to later politics.
Subsidies sound better than they calculate
Germany is now trying to bring more capital market into retirement provision. The planned Altersvorsorgedepot and the Frühstart-Rente show that even politics notices that pay-as-you-go financing, guarantee products and old Riester logic are no longer enough. From 2027, new subsidized retirement products are to become possible. In the Altersvorsorgedepot, return-oriented investments are to be used more strongly. With the Frühstart-Rente, the state plans to pay 10 euros per month into an individual retirement account for children and young people from the age of 6 to 18.
For a country that long treated stocks like a danger, this is real progress. The capital market is therefore no longer seen only as speculation, but as part of long-term provision. But this insight must not become a new calming product. 10 euros per month for children is a signal, but not a pension solution. An Altersvorsorgedepot can make sense if costs remain low, the product selection is broad and the rules remain understandable over decades. But support is never only money. It comes with conditions. Anyone who saves with subsidies must look at availability, later taxation, costs, product rules and political change risks. Exactly this examination is missing in Germany.
Ownership is less comfortable than a promise
The difference lies between entitlement and ownership. A pension entitlement is important, but it depends on future politics, future contributors and future budgets. Ownership, by contrast, is not untouchable; it fluctuates, costs discipline and requires knowledge. But it is something different from the hope that an overloaded system will later distribute enough. Many young people now know the terms: ETF, inflation, pension gap, Bitcoin, dividends, real estate prices, Altersvorsorgedepot. They do not necessarily lack information, but the right classification. Between social-media hype, product advertising, political subsidies and real financial education, the boundaries disappear. Sometimes the stock market sounds like a casino, sometimes like a sure thing. None of that helps.
A more honest message would be simpler: anyone who only works and hopes remains dependent. Anyone who regularly converts part of their income into ownership builds a second foundation alongside the statutory pension. Young people in particular have the advantage older savers cannot catch up on: time. Small regular amounts can do a lot over decades if they really remain invested and are not eaten up by bad or expensive products. For that, money must first be left at the end of the month at all, an emergency fund is needed and then a structure for long-term building.
Classification
The 40% state hope among young adults is understandable and still problematic. Understandable because many young people today start under conditions that make wealth building harder than in earlier decades. Problematic because they of all people have to finance the state pension promises the longest. The state remains important. It can cushion poverty, set rules and build support more sensibly than before. But it cannot rewrite the demographic calculation. Every pension promise, every subsidy and every support model must be paid for. If young people see their retirement provision mainly with the state, they confuse political responsibility with personal security.
Anyone who wants to be less dependent later needs not only a claim against the system, but wealth outside that system. That is the honest answer to a calculation that otherwise again lands with those who are still at the very beginning today.
