It's been like that for almost ten years now I think. You can read a little bit about it here, "Premium Pension" is the type you want: http://pensionsmyndighet

It's been like that for almost ten years now I think. You can read a little bit about it here, "Premium Pension" is the type you want: http://pensionsmyndigheten.se/AboutYourPensions_en.html http://pensionsmyndigheten.se/AboutYourPensions_en.html Basically, part of the blob of income tax you pay on your salary is a "pension fee". When you retire around the age of 65, your final pension depends partially on how much you've paid in pension fees in total while working. But you don't set aside that money, instead the pensions fees people pay now are used to pay pensions for retired citizens, and future pensions will be financed by the future workforce. But then you have the "Premium pension" which does allow you to set aside part of your pension fee and invest into private funds. Generally the systems is a failure, most people don't care about choosing funds, so they automatically end up in a government run generally mediocre fund. A small percentage are investing soundly and successfully, a larger percentage are investing badly, and most people get screwed by high commission fees of the various funds. On top of these systems there are of course ways to save additional money for your retirement, there are some tax benefits, and you are free to invest pretty much however you want. But yes, it is interesting that we have more privatization than the US in this, it doesn't happen very often. :-)