Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

A polarisation in exit preferences became visible depending on working conditions
(persons working in ´special´, burdening and health-harming conditions prefer early exit
and more often suffer from health impairments which renders them incapable of work) and
on the level of earnings. According to the experts´ opinion, persons with higher wages,
often occupying managerial positions and showing a higher job satisfaction, prefer to
continue work as long as possible, while low-earners want to exit early. The low difference
between (low) wages after exemption of commuting costs to the (equally low) preretirement
benefits moves workers to exit early, even more as the old-age pension in the old
system rises only insignificantly with each additional year of work.
Interestingly enough, and in stark contrast to the German case, the decisions of Poles in
pre-retirement age point rather to the life cycle theory (opting for early retirement in the
absence of actuarially neutral deductions) and to the observation of the principle that
benefits must be lower than wages rather than to the hypothesis of securing the standard of
living (which assesses that retirees-to-be decide about the timing of retirement on grounds
of minimising income losses and keeping their income position; Dinkel 1988). The results
also demonstrate that older workers who want to escape work – be it for family, health or
job-related reasons – are willing to reduce their financial claims. That corresponds with a
low-developed interest of Poles in making precautions for their future pension level
(Szumlicz 2007: 185).
Some interviewees observed that workers have lost the interest in exiting via preretirement
benefits after worsened conditions in 2004. In a dairy company, that has
complicated the process of personnel reductions, as workers do not any more take the
initiative to exit early. That shows that workers factually adjust their exit choices to
changed conditions, but their preferences are still orientated towards old privileges.
Moreover, in times of downsizing, even those workers who do not want to exit on lower
pre-retirement benefits are often forced to do so. Therefore, one should speak of negotiated
or enforced retirement decisions rather than of preferences.
In the light of those findings, hypothesis 4 (see section 2.3.) is supported, but
supplemented with the addition that structural variables (the position of the firm on the
market, restructuring or downsizing needs) have determining power. Only the intermingling
of structural and institutional factors brings about the specific pattern of early exit in
Poland. Other factors which interact with institutional factors (and which had been one of
the reasons for the introduction of early retirement in the 1980s) are located at the
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