Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

sexes 29 favoured the age of 55 as retirement age for women , and the age of 60 as retirement
age for men in all waves of the survey (CBOS 2007: 4; Table 9).
Table 9: Optimum retirement age for women in the opinion of Polish respondents,
1999-2007
Survey in Oct.
1999
Survey in
April 2002
Survey in Dec.
2003
Survey in Dec.
2005
55 years or earlier 85% 52% 70% 67% 72%
60 years 12% 31% 22% 28% 21%
65 years 1% 9% 3% 2% 4%
Above 65 years 1% 0 0 0 0
Difficult to tell 1% 8% 5% 3% 3%
Source: CBOS (2007: 4).
Survey in Sept.
2007
The acceptance of the lowest possible retirement age for women has decreased and the
acceptance of a retirement at 60 has increased when compared to the situation in 1999. The
all-time high in the acceptance of a higher retirement age for women and for men was
recorded in 2002. This was probably a reverberation of the debate on retirement ages and
pension adequacy that had accompanied the grand pension reform of 1999. The lower
retirement age for women is regarded as a just compensation for the double or triple burden
of gainful employment-household labour-child care, and as an option to take on
grandmotherly duties (OBOP 1999).
I will now sum up the section on aggregate results of institutional and structural
changes. Just as in Germany, the pension system in Poland was used for solving labour
market problems. The difference lies in the intentions – while the easing of the strain on the
labour market was a side effect of policies introduced for other reasons (Ebbinghaus 2002:
163, 179), in Poland it was intentional socio-economic policy which has distorted the
relations of the number of economically active to economically passive persons (Kabaj
2003: 46-48).
The inflow rates into pre-retirement benefits, disability pensions and early old-age
pensions picture both new institutional opportunities and the rising unemployment. Waves
of unemployment swept many persons into newly opened exit pathways in the beginning of
the 1980s and after the transformation. Employment rates were falling following the
introduction of early retirement in 1981. Till the transformation, disability pensions were the
29 The aggregate results were not differentiated by sex. The results are all the more striking when we consider
than the wording of the question related it to persons who do not work in conditions detrimental to health.
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