Extending working lives: How policies shape retirement and labour market participation of older workers

This study investigates how policies shape retirement and labour market participation of older workers and thus help extending working lives. It employs a time‐series–cross‐section analysis of the effects of macro‐level institutional pull, push and retention factors on effective retirement age and employment rate of older workers in 15 OECD countries from 1992 to 2010. The comparative approach reveals that public pension system rules that have been geared towards postponing retirement in many countries in past decades, indeed, are significant determinants of lengthening working lives. In particular, statutory retirement age and financial disincentives for early retirement proof important. Institutional effects differ by gender, though. Furthermore, the results point to the importance of social policies supporting labour market participation throughout the life‐course: social investment in human capital and public services clearly supports extending working lives

Introduction to Youth Employment Insecurity and Pension Adequacy

In this introductory chapter, we frame the topic of the edited volume Youth Employment Insecurity and Future Pension Adequacy in a wider context of pension and labour market research and illustrate how the collection extends our understanding of how labour market risks of today’s young people relate to future pension adequacy. We first elaborate on the academic, political and societal relevance of the topic by explaining how increasing labour market risks and recent pension reforms challenge adequate incomes in old age for future generations of retirees. We then shortly review the existing literature and the empirical evidence we can observe so far. Finally, we outline the structure of the book and the contributions of the chapters

Measuring Welfare Entitlement Generosity in Transitional Welfare States: The Case of Post-communist Countries in Central and Eastern Europe

Measuring welfare state generosity in developing and transitional welfare states is often challenged not only by lack of comparative quantitative data, but also by issues of conceptual stretching. This paper demonstrates and discusses the use of one of the key measures of welfare entitlement generosity developed in the comparative welfare state research in the context of post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). With the new time series data provided by the Comparative Welfare Entitlements Dataset CWED2, comparative approaches including the CEE countries have become feasible. This paper first discusses quantitative measures of welfare entitlement generosity in the tradition of the social rights of citizenship approach and how they can be applied for cross-country comparisons. It then demonstrates empirically how the emerging CEE welfare states’ generosity compares to mature “old” OECD welfare states. Finally, the paper shows the potential and the pitfalls of quantitative measures of welfare state generosity by discussing, to what extent do indicators of social security scheme generosity measure the same in established and emerging welfare states, which functional equivalents may be relevant in the context of emerging welfare states and how far can we stretch our theoretical concepts

From social security to social investment? : Compensating and social investment welfare policies in a life-course perspective

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the forms and characteristics of social investment policies and their potential trade-off with social security schemes by assessing developments of welfare spending profiles in 23 European welfare states in the 2000s. I argue that if a social investment turn has indeed occurred, it is not necessarily at the cost of the ‘old’ compensatory policies. Instead, social investment policies and their relation to compensating welfare policies alter with regard to policies targeted at different life-stages and to the type of welfare regime. Therefore, the results attest to a path-dependent trend within the welfare regimes, the Nordic countries remaining clear forerunners in terms of both level and dynamics of social investment policies. European social investment strategies manifest mainly in policies targeting childhood and youth, while a trade-off between social investment and compensating policies is evident in working-age policies to some degree

Precarious Work, Unemployment Benefit Generosity and Universal Basic Income Preferences : A Multilevel Study on 21 European Countries

The idea of universal basic income (UBI) has been attracting increasing attention globally over recent years. However, research on the individual and institutional determinants of UBI support is scarce. The present study attempts to fills this gap by analysing workers’ attitudes towards UBI schemes in 21 European welfare states and focusing on the roles of precarious work (i.e. part-time work, temporary employment, low-skilled service employment, and solo self-employment) and unemployment benefit generosity (i.e. net replacement rate, payment duration, and qualifying period). We estimate fixed and random effects logistic models by merging country-level institutional data with the European Social Survey Round 8 data collected in 2016. The findings show that temporary employment is associated with positive attitudes towards UBI schemes, whereas other types of precarious work do not have significant influences. In addition, the results reveal that the more generous a country’s unemployment benefits, the less likely are workers in that country to support UBI schemes.Peer reviewe

Public Pension Generosity and Old-Age Poverty in OECD countries

Pension adequacy is gaining importance as old-age poverty remains a pressing problem. In many advanced welfare states, the population is ageing rapidly and recent pension reforms have led to cuts in public pension provision. There are, however, few comparative longitudinal studies on the relationship between pension generosity and old-age poverty. This study provides a comparative empirical assessment of how the prevalence and depth of old-age poverty relates to generosity of public pension benefits in 14 advanced OECD welfare states from 1980-2010. We focus on the role of mandatory public pension provision of mainly first tier schemes that grant the major share of retirees’ income in most countries. We use data on theoretical pension replacement rates for retirees who had different working-age incomes. In order to address endogeneity issues, we adopt an instrumental-variable approach. Our main finding shows that pensions systems and earnings-related schemes, in particular, are quite efficient in reducing the risk of old-age poverty. Yet they still do very little to alleviate poverty among those pensioners in the most disadvantaged situations. We also found that redistribution within the pension system does not substantially contribute to poverty alleviation

Naisten ja miesten eläke-erot : Katsaus tutkimukseen ja tilastoihin

Raportissa kootaan Suomessa vuodesta 2000 ilmestynyttä sukupuolten eläke-eroa käsittelevää tutkimusta ja tilastoja. Ta-voitteena on tuottaa ajantasainen tietopohja julkiselle keskustelulle ja päätöksenteolle. Naisten eläkkeet ovat keskimäärin viidenneksen matalampia kuin miesten eläkkeet. Vaikka ero on pienentynyt jonkin ver-ran, se on yhä merkittävä ja EU-maiden keskitasoa. Naisten ja miesten keskimääräisessä työllisyysasteessa, työurien pituu-dessa tai eläkkeelle siirtymisessä ei ole nykyään suurtakaan eroa, sen sijaan ansioero on kansainvälisestikin huomattava (16 %). Sukupuolten ansioero vaikuttaa keskeisesti sukupuolten eläke-eroon. Perhevapaiden epätasainen jakautuminen naisten ja miesten välillä ja erityisesti pitkät kotihoidontukijaksot kasvattavat osaltaan ansio- ja eläke-eroa. Suomalaisen eläkejärjestelmän säännöt ovat samat naisille ja miehille, eikä viimeaikaisten eläkeuudistusten ole arvioitu oleellisesti vaikuttaneen sukupuolten eläke-eroon. Vuonna 2085 naisten mediaanieläkkeen arvioidaan olevan yhä 15 pro-senttiyksikköä alempi kuin miesten. Työmarkkinoilla ja ansiotasossa tapahtuvien muutosten sekä työeläkejärjestelmän uu-distusten vaikutukset näkyvät vasta vuosien, jopa vuosikymmenien päästä. Kansan- ja takuueläkkeellä on naisille edelleen keskeisempi merkitys, sillä he saavat niitä useammin ja siksi myös niihin tehdyt tasomuutokset koskevat erityisesti naisia

Naisten ja miesten eläke-erot : Katsaus tutkimukseen ja tilastoihin

Raportissa kootaan Suomessa vuodesta 2000 ilmestynyttä sukupuolten eläke-eroa käsittelevää tutkimusta ja tilastoja. Ta-voitteena on tuottaa ajantasainen tietopohja julkiselle keskustelulle ja päätöksenteolle. Naisten eläkkeet ovat keskimäärin viidenneksen matalampia kuin miesten eläkkeet. Vaikka ero on pienentynyt jonkin ver-ran, se on yhä merkittävä ja EU-maiden keskitasoa. Naisten ja miesten keskimääräisessä työllisyysasteessa, työurien pituu-dessa tai eläkkeelle siirtymisessä ei ole nykyään suurtakaan eroa, sen sijaan ansioero on kansainvälisestikin huomattava (16 %). Sukupuolten ansioero vaikuttaa keskeisesti sukupuolten eläke-eroon. Perhevapaiden epätasainen jakautuminen naisten ja miesten välillä ja erityisesti pitkät kotihoidontukijaksot kasvattavat osaltaan ansio- ja eläke-eroa. Suomalaisen eläkejärjestelmän säännöt ovat samat naisille ja miehille, eikä viimeaikaisten eläkeuudistusten ole arvioitu oleellisesti vaikuttaneen sukupuolten eläke-eroon. Vuonna 2085 naisten mediaanieläkkeen arvioidaan olevan yhä 15 pro-senttiyksikköä alempi kuin miesten. Työmarkkinoilla ja ansiotasossa tapahtuvien muutosten sekä työeläkejärjestelmän uu-distusten vaikutukset näkyvät vasta vuosien, jopa vuosikymmenien päästä. Kansan- ja takuueläkkeellä on naisille edelleen keskeisempi merkitys, sillä he saavat niitä useammin ja siksi myös niihin tehdyt tasomuutokset koskevat erityisesti naisia