Regulating the Transition From Work to Retirement: Towards a New Distribution of Responsibilities Between the State, Social Partners and Companies?

Abstract

Germany has experienced a fundamental shift in the architecture of the old-age pension system since the turn of the century. While research has focused on the reduction of benefit levels, scholars have paid less attention to the changing framework for the transition into retirement. Lawmakers abolished options for early or flexible retirement in the public system, shifting responsibility for this issue to collective and company agreements. This paper investigates how different actors addressed their new responsibilities for shaping workers’ transition from employment to retirement. It relies on an empirical study with a mixed methods research design, including a representative quantitative company survey, a qualitative analysis of different industries, company case studies, and analyses of collective agreements. We observe significant variation between industries and companies that have developed life-course-oriented options for their employees and others that have hardly taken up the issue. Consequently, the new architecture of old age security has led to new inequalities between workers of different industries and even within companies. The article contributes to our understanding of the political dynamics accompanying demographic and economic change across Europe and beyond by demonstrating the role of institutions and coordination mechanisms in producing variegated forms of citizenship. Keywords: old-age pension system, transition from work to retirement, flexible retirement, collective agreements, occupational pensions, multi-level-governance, inequality.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ute Klammer is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for Work, Skills and Training (IAQ) at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), Germany. Her main fields of interest and research are: social policy (pension systems, health care systems, family policy), labour market research, European and comparative social policy research, labour market partipation and social protection of women, migration and social policy. Klammer chaired the German expert commission on gender equality and worked in several expert commissions such as the German government’s council for sustainable development and the German Social Advisory Council (Sozialbeirat).

Notes

1. The term “pension transition” generally refers to the direct passage from employment into retirement, but also includes transitions among different forms of employment and legal statuses (cf. Radl 2007, 512).

2. This research project - directed by the author and conducted together with Norbert Fröhler and Thilo Fehmel - was supported by the Hans-Boeckler-Foundation under Grant number S-2008-136-4. The empirical data collection and evaluation was carried out in the years 2009–2013. For the complete research report see (Fröhler, Fehmel, and Klammer 2013).

3. The survey is representative for private companies in Germany with more than 20 employees and works councils.

4. Developments after 2013, such as the introduction of the Pension at 63 or the so-called Flexi Pensions Act, fell in the aftermath of the study.

5. The partial retirement scheme is an option that allows older employees to prepare for retirement by either reducing working hours or by prematurely terminating active employment (part time model/block model). For employees who started the partial retirement scheme before 2010, partial retirement was supported by the Federal Employment Agency if the company created new jobs for younger employees.

6. Representative for companies with works councils and at least 20 employees.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Hans Boeckler Foundation: [grant number S-2008-136-4].