Our system may look the same but it works in a clearly different way. An employee pays an annual insurance premium (a percentage of his gross salary and tax deductable) to which a similar or mostly somewhat larger amount is added by the employer. The combined amount goes into an independent fund, that will manage this as an investment portfolio. The system works in such a way that your maximum pension will be 70% of your average salary over your entire working life. So if you pay for 40 years, you pay a built-up of about 1.75 % per annum. (If you will work less you will not build up your full pension) Once reaching the pension age, (65 officially) the fund will start to pay out on a monthly basis, and AS LONG AS YOU LIVE, which I think is a decisive difference with your system.
You do not need to work all of your life with the same employer, because built-up pension rights are transferable from one pension fund to another without additional costs.