Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University
Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University
Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
increasingly engaged in that issue). I seek the explanation in other available ways of early<br />
exit, and in the low bargaining position of impaired workers vis-á-vis the management.<br />
The shorter period of receipt of the earnings-related unemployment benefit has had a<br />
limited effect on firm behaviour, as most firms in my sample rely on the ATZ pathway and<br />
do not use the unemployment pathway to early exit based on the ´59 rule´ any more.<br />
However, in two firms which utilise that option, it has had a ´positive effect´: both the<br />
company management is not willing to pay a higher compensation and workers do not want<br />
to cope with the threat of unemployment coupled with the receipt of the low means-tested<br />
unemployment benefit (AL-Geld II).<br />
The old-age pension for women was seldom used as a vehicle for early exit, with the<br />
exception of three firms. One example of ´negative reaction´ shall be named for reasons of<br />
its singularity. The bank, which is an unusual case because of the wide array of both<br />
branch-wide and firm-level pre-retirement schemes, plans to couple the firm-level preretirement<br />
schemes with the seniority pension starting in 20<strong>12</strong> (after the expiry of the oldage<br />
pension for women), which is an example of instrument substitution (Casey 1989).<br />
Raised retirement ages (with the exception of ´retirement at 67´, which will be treated<br />
separately) and pension deductions in case of early receipt have had mixed effects, but<br />
affected a larger number of firms. Reasons are that coping with those reform elements is<br />
unavoidable – even if a firm renounces the unemployment or disability pathway to early<br />
exit, it cannot evade the utilisation of old-age pensions by workers and may utilise it in the<br />
final result as a flexible instrument for personnel adjustments. However, due to long<br />
phasing-in periods, and to the willingness of a large group of workers to cope with<br />
permanent deductions, those reforms have not had yet the intended effect upon all firms.<br />
Moreover, firms which showed a ´positive reaction´ to one reform element, often at the<br />
same time showed a negative adaptation pattern in another respect.<br />
In some firms, the ATZ pathway was closed (or planned to be closed) altogether for<br />
reasons of to low flexibility and too high costs, or the works council agreements on ATZ<br />
adapted the preferred entry and exit age from the scheme to risen retirement ages.<br />
´Negative reactions´ in the form of (higher) compensation payments for pension<br />
deductions were more often. The prime example here is a high-tech firm where the<br />
successive raising of retirement ages resulted in ever higher severance payments – the<br />
147