Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

I will now depict the beneficial or detrimental conditions which have brought about this
situation and which determine the development of those benchmarks in future. The next
section will thus serve as a summary and comparison of the preceding institutional chapters
on Germany and Poland. It will also add additional variables at the institutional or socioeconomic
level which might explain the position of Poland and Germany with regard to the
EC targets. However, only institutional variables, together with the knowledge gained from
section 3.2. and 3.3., will serve as a basis for testing hypothesis 6 at the end of this chapter.
3.4.2. Institutional Supply-side Factors
This sub-section will list pull factors responsible for the early exit trend in the two
analysed countries. It will build on conclusions reached in the two preceding chapters (3.2.
and 3.3.), therefore repetitions cannot be avoided. The results will be visually represented in
Table 10 at the end of this section.
In both countries, the externalisation of older workforce was a politically intended
process jointly pursued by the state, the employers and trade unions (although, as was
mentioned before, the intentions were quite different in Germany in the beginning). It has
also started around the same date (1970s). The curtailment of early exit options has also
commenced in the same period (mid-1990s), but has farther proceeded in Germany (Szatur-
Jaworska et al. 2006: 155-6; Naegele 2002: 223).
The process of public policy-making in both countries is characterised by ´ups and
downs´ and ´stop and go´ (comp. Schömann 2006: 134 on the example of Germany). This
can be seen on the example of bridging pensions in Poland, and the prolonged period of
receipt of the unemployment benefit for elderly persons in Germany. Germany has however
farther progressed on the path towards the curtailment of early exit options and closed the
gaps to alternative exit options (the unemployment and disability pathway). Moreover, the
phasing-in of a higher retirement age is a clear political declaration that a trend reversal has
been completed (although the measure is objectionable with regard to pension adequacy and
polarisation of exit pathways). In contrast, Polish farmers, still forming about 20 per cent of
overall workforce, profit from insurance in KRUS while paying small contributions, and
incentives for their early withdrawal from the farm where set with the introduction of
structural pensions in 2005. Not to mention judges, prosecutors and the armed forces, for
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