A defined benefit pension is a type of pension also know as a final salary scheme. This type of pension is different from defined contribution pensions such as personal pensions. Generally, the employer pays for the scheme, where the employee gets paid a set amount of pension each year after retirement. This payment amount is dependent on how much they earned and how long they worked there. As people started living longer, these type of scheme got very expensive to employers, and so are much rarer now.