"Often, these government workers are also raising families and putting their kids through school. Without such a pension plan, this would not be possible and ma

"Often, these government workers are also raising families and putting their kids through school. Without such a pension plan, this would not be possible and many (especially single parent) families of government working households would be stuck to a threshold close to the poverty line." Please can you explain to me, honestly. Why would someone that has children or plans to willingly choose to take a pay cut in exchange for a big pension fund? Sounds very selfish, because it implies that these people want to struggle to pay for their children's upbringing and education just so that they could have a "cushy middle-class" retirement when the kids are out of the house. That is the quote and justification one of the posters below used when explaining why it's okay that they get huge pensions instead of using their salary to save up for retirement like the rest of society.