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From the Conservative welfare state to an uncertain something else: German pension politics in comparative perspective
- Authors:
- LAMPING Wolfram, RUB Friedbert W.
- Journal article citation:
- Policy and Politics, 32(2), April 2004, pp.69-91.
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
The 2001 German pension reform represents the beginning of a new welfare politics of a new welfare state. It adds to the former exclusively pay-as-you-go financed public system a capital funded private pillar. This private pillar is a politically regulated welfare market. The new pension policy is a striking example of a structural reform in a politically risky policy field. This change was made possible by two processes: first, running out of options in respect of traditional concepts of problem solving and, second, a new experimental policy style. As a result, the new German welfare state is on an irrevocable path from a conservative welfare state to a new recombinant type mixing different elements of 'worlds of welfare'.
The '1992 reform' of public pensions in Germany: main elements and some effects
- Author:
- SCHMAL Winifried
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of European Social Policy, 3(1), 1993, pp.39-51.
- Publisher:
- Sage
This article gives an overview of central aspects (aims and measures) of the German Pension Reform Act of 1989, implemented in 1992. One main element is the redefinition of the pension adjustment procedure aimed at a constant net pension level. It is integrated in a self-regulating mechanism making financing a dependent variable. Other important measures are aimed at increasing the average retirement age and introducing a partial pension into social insurance. The article discusses possible economic effects of these measures as well as consequences of their introduction in East Germany after the German unification, taking into account the quite different situations in the East and West Germany.
Work-family balance in the second half of life: caregivers' decisions regarding retirement and working time reduction in Europe
- Authors:
- BERTOGG Ariane, NAZIO Tiziana, STRAUSS Susanne
- Journal article citation:
- Social Policy and Administration, 55(3), 2021, pp.485-500.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
This article investigates how different types of informal caregiving – upward, lateral and downward – impact men's and women's decisions to retire or to reduce their working hours, and how welfare policy characteristics moderate the linkage between informal care provision and employment participation. The analyses are based on six waves from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). This study exploits the data's longitudinal structure by applying fixed‐effects regression models with lagged, time‐varying country characteristics. The results show that, in most cases, upward caregiving to parents is less relevant for deciding to remain in the labour market than lateral care (especially to siblings, friends and neighbours) and downward grandchild care. The welfare context moderates the impact of caregiving on labour market participation, with variation between the different types of care provided. (Edited publisher abstract)
Old europe?: demographic change and pension reform
- Author:
- WILLETTS David
- Publisher:
- Centre for European Reform
- Publication year:
- 2003
- Pagination:
- 61p.
- Place of publication:
- London
Europe must get to grips with the problems posed by an ageing population, or face a declining economic growth rate and ever-increasing pension liabilities. David Willetts MP exposes the myth that Britain is better prepared to face the problems of an ageing population than continental Europe. He argues that while France and Germany must reform their state pensions systems, Britain needs to tackle
Retrenchment, reproduction, modernization: pension politics and the decline of the German breadwinner model
- Author:
- MEYER Traute
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of European Social Policy, 8(3), August 1998, pp.195-211.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Discusses how the German welfare state supports the traditional division of labour and low female labour force participation. Argues that due to diminishing political support this model is eroding.
Ageing and employment policies: Germany
- Author:
- ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT
- Publisher:
- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
- Publication year:
- 2005
- Pagination:
- 167p, bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- Paris
In the face of rapid population ageing and the trend towards early retirement, there is a need to promote better employment opportunities for older people. Much has been said about the need for reform of old-age pensions and early retirement schemes but this may not be sufficient to raise employment rates for older people significantly or to reduce the future risk of labour shortages. Both
Changing coalitions in social policy reforms: the politics of new social needs and demands
- Author:
- HAUSERMANN Silja
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of European Social Policy, 16(1), February 2006, pp.5-21.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Recent reforms in Swiss and German old-age insurance and family policy included elements directed at both ‘old’ and ‘new’ social needs. ‘Old risks’, such as old age and unemployment, are mainly covered by income-related insurance schemes for standard industrial breadwinners. By contrast, ‘new’ needs, such as infrastructure to reconcile work and care or insurance of atypical employment biographies, concern mainly ‘new’ risk groups, such as young people or women. While reforms directed at ‘old risks’ mainly focused on cost containment, ‘new’ social policies aimed at gender equality or the increase of labour-market participation. In this article, it is argued that the emergence of modernizing policies covering new social needs leads to new conflict lines in social policy making, which differ from the distributional class conflict. Instead, value coalitions and cross-class alliances on these policies are expected. In addition, it is argued that in a consensus-democratic institutional context, such new alliances form more easily. These hypotheses are tested with reference to recent reforms in pension and family policy in Germany and Switzerland. Coalition dynamics are examined by means of process analysis and multidimensional scaling. Empirical evidence largely confirms the hypotheses, but also points out the need for further differentiation of policies covering new social needs.
Income mobility in old age in Britain and Germany
- Authors:
- ZAIDI Asghar, FRICK Joachim R., BUCHEL Felix
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 25(4), July 2005, pp.543-565.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
Examines the income mobility experienced by older people living in Britain and Germany during the 1990s, and identifies the influential personal attributes and lifecourse events. The analysis uses British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) panel data. The comparative perspective yields insights about the different income experiences of older people in the two markedly different welfare regimes. It is found that old-age income mobility has been more pronounced in Britain than in Germany, and that in both countries its occurrence was strongly associated with changes in living arrangements, with the employment status of co-residents, and with widowhood among women. Unemployment during working life associated significantly with negative late-life income mobility. Among those on low incomes, a high share of income from an earnings-related pension had a significant and positive effect in both countries.
When Is a change big enough to be a system shift?: small system-shifting changes in German and Finnish pension policies
- Authors:
- HINRICHS Karl, KAMGAS Olli
- Journal article citation:
- Social Policy and Administration, 37(6), December 2003, pp.573-591.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Comparative welfare state research has revolved around the retrenchment of social policy and the transformation of welfare state regimes. One of the chief problems of these studies is the treatment of time. Very often, changes are incremental and their real impacts are not immediately visible but take years or even decades before the consequences fully materialize. The purpose of this paper is to discuss those incremental processes—that consist of series of smaller “not-system-shifting changes”—which may gradually change central features of a welfare state. Pension programmes, spanning long time periods, provide a good example. Only in some rare cases were pension schemes reformed in one step and in such a way that one can definitely ascertain a system shift. Most changes, however, are gradual, and recurrently enacted minor adjustments seem to leave the basic principles of the scheme intact. In this paper pension reform policies in Germany and Finland will be used to answer the question of when a change is big enough to be labelled as a system shift. It is argued that small “not-system-shifting” changes of the last two decades will eventually alter the basic characteristics of old-age security in both countries.
Another Dutch miracle? Explaining Dutch and German pension trajectories
- Author:
- HAVERLAND Mark
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of European Social Policy, 11(4), November 2001, pp.308-323.
- Publisher:
- Sage
This paper compares old-age pension policy trajectories in the Netherlands and Germany. These two advanced welfare states have developed different financial arrangements despite similarities in policy legacies, political institutions and party systems. Both countries established and extended comprehensive pay-as- you-go financed public pension schemes in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the Netherlands achieved a fully fledged multi-tiered pension system with a strong funded component, while until recently the German system relied almost exclusively on pay-as-you-go financing. The Netherlands has, therefore, a financially more viable and sustainable set of pension arrangements than Germany, at least under the current and foreseeable economic and demographic conditions. The paper reconstructs the pension trajectories in the two countries in order to explore the role of path dependency, political choice and contingency in explaining this divergence. It is argued that divergence is essentially unrelated to different strategic choices or variations in institutional capacities for reform. Instead, divergence is the largely unintended consequence of a series of incremental decisions in combination with contingent events and developments.