There’s a simple way to describe retirement saving in the Netherlands:put aside a day’s pay a week for your future self. 

It’s a striking idea and a simple way to communicate retirement maths to everyday workers. 

And it provides some useful perspective for Australia at a time when there is debate about whether 12% super – little more than a day a fortnight – is sufficient for workers’ future retirements.  

We will be examining different retirement systems around the world right here in the SuperWrap over the coming weeks and months. The perfect place to start is of course the Netherlands.  

Not because of its famous windmills, soccer, flowers, art and canals, but because of their world-leading retirement system that was ranked No. 1 in the world in 2025 by the Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index, with a score of 85.4 and an A grade. 

While Australia’s Superannuation Guarantee has now reached 12%, some of the biggest Dutch workplace pension schemes operate with contributions of more than twice that level. 

For the average Dutch worker, retirement income comes from two main places: a government pension providing a basic floor, topped up by a workplace pension built through substantial contributions from both their employer and their own pay. 

For government and education workers in the ABP fund, the pension contribution is currently 27.1% of pensionable salary. In the health and welfare sector, the PFZW fund has a contribution rate of 25.9%. In the metal and engineering industries, the PMT fund contribution is 27.98%. 

There is an important qualification. These rates apply to pensionable salary after an allowance recognising the state pension, rather than every euro a worker earns. 

A simplified example of how this works in practice: 

• Average Salary: €62,000 
• Pension franchise: €19,000 
• Pensionable salary: €43,000 
• Workplace pension contribution at 27.1%: €11,653 (around 19% of total salary) 

In the Dutch system these contributions coupled with the State pension deliver retirement income at a  similar level as wage income – or replacement rates of around 100%. 

In Australia with a mature system 12% plus a part Age Pension will replace around 70%-75% of wage income.  

The lesson to take from the Dutch isn’t that Australia should double compulsory super. 

It’s about the principle that having enough in retirement requires diligently setting aside enough today. 

Countries that take retirement security seriously recognise that building it requires putting meaningful amounts of money aside during people’s working lives and leaving those savings to work for decades. 

That is precisely what Australia has spent more than 30 years doing, but some early release policies being floated risk undermining those hard-earned gains. 

And despite putting substantially more of their pensionable income aside than Australians, the Dutch public remains supportive. 

A 2024 survey of 3,027 workers and retirees across 11 European countries, Dutch workers and retirees rated their pension system more highly than respondents in any of the other 10 European countries surveyed. 

The Dutch haven’t built one of the world’s largest pools of pension savings by treating retirement saving as whatever is left over after every other financial pressure has been dealt with. 

They have embedded substantial workplace pension contributions into working life. 

Australia’s 12% Super Guarantee wasn’t arrived at accidentally. It reflects a recognition that Australians are living longer, that retirement can last decades, and that providing people with dignity and financial independence after their working lives requires substantial savings. 

And Australia’s system has an enormous advantage that is easily overlooked: time. 

A young Australian entering the workforce today will receive higher super contributions during their working life than previous generations. 

Those contributions won’t simply sit in an account. They can be invested in Australian businesses, infrastructure, property, shares and assets around the world, producing returns that are reinvested year after year. 

Compounding does much of the heavy lifting – three quarters in fact. But it can only do that if we give it something to work with, and that means ensuring the money remains invested for retirement. 

There is plenty Australia can learn from other retirement systems, just as other countries increasingly look closely at ours. But perhaps the most useful lesson from the Dutch isn’t their precise contribution rate. It is their willingness to think about retirement saving on a genuinely long-term horizon. 

Australia doesn’t need to copy the Dutch system. But at a moment when some are again searching for new ways to spend tomorrow’s retirement savings today, their instinct to protect the future from the pressures of the present is a rational one worth reflecting on.