Are you talking about the german Rentensystem or something else? All I've ever heard about it living in Germany was that it won't cover your expenses anymore by

Are you talking about the german Rentensystem or something else? All I've ever heard about it living in Germany was that it won't cover your expenses anymore by the time you retire which is why they tried Riester Rente (and yes that failed). "Privatvorsorge" is a must, so I don't know why you'd say it's working. Also 401ks don't invest in single stocks, but mostly index funds...