However, in many developed countries today’s pensions are mainly paid for by today’s workers, often through a combination of social contributions and taxes.
In Spain, for example, the social security has a large structural deficit that gets covered by large taxes on salaries, taking money from other social services, and sovereign debt.
In other words, young workers are forced to support retirees through means that make it much harder for them to build a future of their own.
This system is kept in place because pensioners are a huge 1-issue voting block that no political party wants to antagonise. I believe that this is somehow downstream of cultural changes that have made all of society more individualistic and self-centred, incapable to work together for a common future.