Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

where workers cancelled the previously agreed ATZ contract after the firm had calculated
their future pension level. The legal expert at the utility company contacted in 2006
estimated that about eleven per cent of persons in the early retirement scheme might have
problems with lower pensions due to low income or short tenure and the related low claims
to occupational pensions. Workers in many other firms decided against participating in the
early retirement scheme after initial consultations with the works council or the legal expert
in the firm.
An example of the impact of pension reforms is the food manufacturing Firm DE-6.
The chairman of the works council describes the early exit orientation of workers as
follows: “They all want of course to leave the firm at the age of 50, at 60, the latest. But we
[sic!] have also realised that it is not possible [because of the low wages]” (2_Firm DE-
6_WCM). Workers who are worn-out would like to exit early but only a few utilise ATZ as
the firm cannot afford to pay a high ATZ income and as wages are very low. At the time of
the second interview, older workers had a still lower propensity to participate in the early
retirement scheme or the 59 rule due to the even lower anticipated pension level as a result
of the meanwhile risen retirement ages and lower replacement rates.
A survey of workers aged 45 and more in Firm DE-7 and Firm DE-8 revealed that 2/3
of the younger age group (45-55) favours an exit at the age of 55-60 years and 1/3 at the
age of 60-65. Among the 56-65-year-olds, the shares were the other way round. This is a
sign of a more realistic assessment of available retirement options and related consequences
for the pension level. That corresponds with results of representative surveys which show
an upwards adaptation of the planned age of exit from the labour market (Engstler 2004).
The impact of pension reforms on reversing the trend towards early retirement
manifests itself in the leisure/work calculations presented above. Another adaptation pattern
of workers to changes rules is continued participation in the early retirement scheme, but
with changed parameters. E.g., in the food manufacturing Firm DE-9, younger birth cohorts
choose an increasingly longer duration of ATZ (5 years instead of 2-3 years), and thus their
retirement age after ATZ is increasing by and by (at 62-63 and not at 60-61) (information
from additional material). This was followed by a change of attitude towards early exit –
while during the first interview, the chairman of the works council in Firm DE-9 pondered
on the age of 60 or 60.5 as a “magic line”, a demarcation line for the phase of early exit,
during the second interview a few years later, he talked about the age of 63 as the
“absolutely magic number”.
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