Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
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CATHERINE SPIESER<br />
Organizing exit from employment and<br />
the labour market at once: paths to early<br />
retirement<br />
As in Western Europe in the past (Kohli et<br />
al. 1991, Ebbinghaus 2006), early retirement<br />
provided a widely-used alternative to manage<br />
mass dismissals, reducing their visibility by<br />
the same token. While it existed as a privilege<br />
before 1989, its function changed as it became<br />
a mechanism for employment adjustment.<br />
In addition, after 1990, the pension system<br />
continued to allow a long list of professions<br />
to retire earlier with full pension rights<br />
(Czepulis-Rutkowska 1999: 152). Social<br />
plans accompanying firm restructuring made<br />
extensive use of measures allowing to peacefully<br />
get rid of redundant workers and put them on<br />
the two kinds of inactivity pensions available:<br />
old-age retirement and disability. In 1991,<br />
a regulation targeting people who would be<br />
unable to find new employment allowed those<br />
who had been working for 35 (women) or 40<br />
years (men) to retire with full rights regardless<br />
of age if they had been made redundant (ibid.).<br />
An additional pre-retirement benefit financed<br />
by the labour fund, was later created to bridge<br />
the period between becoming unemployed and<br />
reaching the legal retirement age, targeting<br />
especially the long-term unemployed.<br />
Evidence of the scope of early retirement<br />
in practice is provided by several indicators<br />
regarding people moving from work or<br />
unemployment to retirement before the legal<br />
retirement age. The number of people retiring<br />
significantly exceeded those reaching retirement<br />
age in several given years. In 1991 and 1992,<br />
around 40% of all pensioners had not yet<br />
reached the legal retirement age (Golinowska<br />
1994: 33-35; Orenstein 1995: 191). In 1996<br />
again, 39.5% of all men and 28% of women<br />
who retired had not yet reached retirement<br />
age (ZUS, in Müller 1999: 101). In 1999, one<br />
third of the male workers who retired were<br />
below 60, declining to one fourth in 2001<br />
(ZUS figures). In 1999, still, more than 10%<br />
of men receiving an old-age pension were<br />
below 60. While the number of employed<br />
people fell by 14% between 1989 and 1996,<br />
the number of pensioners (including those<br />
on disability benefits) rose simultaneously by<br />
34%. Pensions clearly played the role of an<br />
additional unemployment benefit scheme. In<br />
2003, according to the Ministry of Economy<br />
and Labour, out of around one million of<br />
unemployed who were receiving some kind<br />
of benefit (less than 30%), slightly more<br />
than half received a pre-retirement benefit,<br />
while only the remaining portion received a<br />
proper unemployment benefit. In 2003, over<br />
half a million people were receiving a preretirement<br />
benefit or allowance. Similarly,<br />
the high rate of certified disability suggests<br />
that disability benefits were in part used as<br />
a functional equivalent of pre-retirement<br />
despite the medical examination required<br />
to certify unfitness to work. In 2002, they<br />
were distributed to 13% of the working-age<br />
population (20-64), and up to 18% of those<br />
aged between 40-55 (Burns and Kowalski<br />
2004: 6-7). The government attempt to reform<br />
the scheme and strengthen controls<br />
in 2003 met with little success.<br />
page 135<br />
Therefore, the standard unemployment<br />
benefit was only one of<br />
several policy instruments used to address<br />
rising unemployment, and not necessarily<br />
the prevailing one. With the heavy reliance