Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

and the agitation by the works council diminish the impact of institutional constraints. To
give an example: contrary to the above described pattern of postponed retirement in Firm
DE-9, some workers decided for retirement at 61/62 instead at 63 after information days
organised by the works council, during which it calculated the optimum model for each
worker.
Those exceptions, and the intermingling of pull, push and jump determinants of early
exit, show that the institutional impact on early exit is important, but structural factors (the
downward economic trend which necessitates personnel reductions in firms) determine
whether an individual deliberation and voluntary decision of the older workers is at all
possible. Hypothesis 4 is therefore supported here with a restriction.
The determining role of structural factors becomes apparent in Firm DE-14, which is
also an exceptional case with regard to retirement preferences (Box 5).
Box 5: Early exit despite the interest of older workers in longer work
Employees in Firm DE-14, most of them engineers, prefer continued employment until the standard retirement
age due to high job satisfaction and low work burdens (although job pressure is rising, according to the chairman
of the works council). Older workers have however resigned to the need of personnel reductions, as all workers
who were entitled to the 58 rule were approached with an ´offer that one does not refuse´. The personnel
manager explained the negotiation process in detail – the workers addressed first refused he offer, then the
employer has been gradually raising the severance payments as a compensation for pension deductions “until
they could no more refuse”, or issued a “personal threat” that younger workes would have to be dismissed
(2_Firm DE-14_HRM).
To sum up: This section has shown that institutional constraints and opportunities have
an impact upon workers´ decisions on the timing of exit from the labour market. Both
statutory and firm-level options are of importance here. The way they have formed the early
exit trend could be clearly observed in my firm case studies.
The main reasons which motivated the workers to exit early were financial incentives
by the employer or the state, and active pushing out by the employer. Pull, push and jump
determinants simultaneously shaped the decision of individuals whether to exit or to stay,
therefore legislative endeavours which address only one lever do not have full effect. Thus,
the impact of legislative changes upon individual behaviour is confirmed, but the tricklingdown
of institutional regulations takes only place within the boundaries set by firms and by
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