Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

the view to structural factors and power relations, on the other hand. My intention is to
inquire which model is followed by corporate actors with regard to older workforce.
Operationalisation: I will study what policies corporate decision-makers apply with
regard to older workers, what the direction of those policies is (´internalisation´ vs.
´externalisation´), and whether those differ from policies applied towards other groups of
workers.
A combined perspective of the ´varieties of capitalism´ approach (Hall/Soskice
2001) and of the ´varieties of welfare state regimes´ approach (Esping-Andersen 1998)
was applied by Mares (2001). She shows that firms have preferences for certain social
policy arrangements. They have to make a constant trade-off between the goals of ´risk
redistribution´ (redistribution of the costs for the labour market risks of work accidents,
unemployment and old age) and ´control´ (retaining some responsibility for the
administration of welfare arrangements, but with higher costs incurred). She describes the
conditions under which firms prefer universalistic social policies or private-type policies.
With regard to early retirement, Mares (2001: 208-211) argues that larger firms and firms
with an older workforce participated to a larger extent in the opportunities posed by the ´59
rule´ and the ´pre-retirement scheme´ (Vorruhestand), as for large firms “the status quo
represented an ideal combination of risk redistribution and control”. Ebbinghaus (2002: 42-
43) gives further examples of employer´ interest in the locus of control: mandatory
retirement clauses in employment contracts; the voluntary topping-up of public benefits;
part-time jobs which can be combined with gradual pensions and the co-financing of the
unemployment pathway until the worker can draw an old-age pension.
From the firm-structural approach (Kohli et al. 1983; Kohli 1988) and the combined
´varieties of capitalism´ and ´varieties of welfare state regimes´ approach, as applied by
Mares (2001), I derive hypothesis 3: The better the economic situation of the firm and
the lower the share of older workers among the workforce, the more prone it will be to
facilitate prolonged employment. Conversely, firms with a bad financial standing and
a higher proportion of older workers will be more prone to externalise them via
existing or newly created exit pathways.
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