Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University
Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University 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 93
whom a separate pension system is maintained and no attempts at unifying it within FUS are made. Pension and other benefit systems pose incentives for early exit. One indicator which exhibits a strong negative correlation with employment rates for older workers is the net pension replacement rate for the standard old-age pensioner (EC 2007: 85). Poland offers generous replacement rates for persons retiring within the old public pension system (76%) valid for persons born before 1948, whereas the replacement rate in Germany (58%) is below OECD average (69.7%) (OECD 2007). The available exit pathways are another pull factor, as they might invite evasive strategies when the main old-age pension pathway is closed. While the disability pension functioned in Germany for a long time as outlet for the unemployed into inactivity (Voges 1994), the reform of 2001 has curtailed that practice. In Poland, disability pensions have not yet been brought in line with old-age pensions with regard to the pension formula. The unemployment pathway was closed in Germany (no new beneficiaries of the facilitated receipt of the unemployment benefit) but not in Poland (continuous take-up options of preretirement benefits). The population in Germany and Poland is orientated towards an earlier retirement age than that set by legislative regulations. The average age at which Poles interrogated in the year 2006 planned to retire was 60.6 years; 62.7 years in the case of men and 58.3 years in the case of women (Zgierska 2007: 7). 32 In Germany, workers on average plan to retire at the age of 61.6. (men – 62 years; women – 61.1. years) according to the Ageing Survey of 2002 (Engstler 2004: 13), or at the age of 63 (men), resp. 61.6 (women) according to the Eurobarometer of 2003 (Esser 2005: Annex A). The differences may be to some extent due to different ages of respondents 33 – the older, the higher is the probability than one might utilise still available early retirement pensions. If we look at the age ranges within which the respondents plan to retire, a striking outcome is the higher percentage of Germans (37.2%) than Poles (13.7%) who expect to retire below the age of 60/61, and the higher share of 32 That age would be even lower if also those responses were considered which did not give an exact age but an age range. 33 In the Polish survey, workers aged 50-65 years were interrogated, in the Ageing Survey 2002 – workers aged 40-59, and in the Eurobarometer 2003, workers aged 25+. 94
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- Page 109 and 110: Due to the negligence in the field
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whom a separate pension system is maintained and no attempts at unifying it within FUS are<br />
made.<br />
Pension and other benefit systems pose incentives for early exit. One indicator which<br />
exhibits a strong negative correlation with employment rates for older workers is the net<br />
pension replacement rate for the standard old-age pensioner (EC 2007: 85). Poland offers<br />
generous replacement rates for persons retiring within the old public pension system (76%)<br />
valid for persons born before 1948, whereas the replacement rate in Germany (58%) is<br />
below OECD average (69.7%) (OECD 2007).<br />
The available exit pathways are another pull factor, as they might invite evasive<br />
strategies when the main old-age pension pathway is closed. While the disability pension<br />
functioned in Germany for a long time as outlet for the unemployed into inactivity (Voges<br />
1994), the reform of 2001 has curtailed that practice. In Poland, disability pensions have not<br />
yet been brought in line with old-age pensions with regard to the pension formula. The<br />
unemployment pathway was closed in Germany (no new beneficiaries of the facilitated<br />
receipt of the unemployment benefit) but not in Poland (continuous take-up options of preretirement<br />
benefits).<br />
The population in Germany and Poland is orientated towards an earlier retirement age<br />
than that set by legislative regulations. The average age at which Poles interrogated in the<br />
year 2006 planned to retire was 60.6 years; 62.7 years in the case of men and 58.3 years in<br />
the case of women (Zgierska 2007: 7). 32 In Germany, workers on average plan to retire at<br />
the age of 61.6. (men – 62 years; women – 61.1. years) according to the Ageing Survey of<br />
2002 (Engstler 2004: 13), or at the age of 63 (men), resp. 61.6 (women) according to the<br />
Eurobarometer of 2003 (Esser 2005: Annex A). The differences may be to some extent due<br />
to different ages of respondents 33 – the older, the higher is the probability than one might<br />
utilise still available early retirement pensions. If we look at the age ranges within which the<br />
respondents plan to retire, a striking outcome is the higher percentage of Germans (37.2%)<br />
than Poles (13.7%) who expect to retire below the age of 60/61, and the higher share of<br />
32 That age would be even lower if also those responses were considered which did not give an exact age but<br />
an age range.<br />
33 In the Polish survey, workers aged 50-65 years were interrogated, in the Ageing Survey 2002 – workers aged<br />
40-59, and in the Eurobarometer 2003, workers aged 25+.<br />
94
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