Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World

Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World
Author: Axel Börsch-Supan
Publisher:
Total Pages: 672
Release: 2020
Genre: Postemployment benefits
ISBN: 9780226674100

"This ninth volume of the International Social Security series, which studies the social security and retirement experiences of 12 developed countries, examines the effects of pension reform on employment at older ages. In the two decades since the project began, a dramatic decline in men's labor force participation has been replaced by sharply rising participation rates. Older women's participation has increased dramatically as well. While better health, more education, and changes in labor supply behavior of married couples may have affected this trend, these factors alone cannot explain the magnitude of the employment increase and its large variation across countries. Concurrently with rising participation rates, countries have undertaken numerous reforms of their social security programs, disability programs, and other public benefit programs for older workers. Using a common template for analysis across the 12 countries so that results are easily compared, the studies in this volume explore how financial incentives to work at older ages have evolved from 1980 to the present as a result of public pension reforms, and how much of the changes in employment over this period can be explained by these changing incentives. Overall, the findings support the hypothesis that social security reforms have strengthened the incentives for work at older ages, and that these enhanced financial incentives contributed to the rise in employment at older ages during this period"--

Social Security and Retirement in Germany

Social Security and Retirement in Germany
Author: Axel Börsch-Supan
Publisher:
Total Pages: 72
Release: 1997
Genre: Retirement
ISBN:

This paper describes the German public old age social security program (, Gesetzliche Rentenversicherung') and its incentive effects on retirement decisions. The paper presents the key features of the system and expresses retirement incentives in the form of accrual rates of social security wealth and implicit tax rates on earnings. It summarizes labor market behavior of older persons in Germany during the last 35 years and surveys the empirical literature on the effects of the social security system on retirement in Germany. The paper shows that even after the 1992 reform the German system is actuarially unfair. This generates a substantial redistribution from late to early retirees and creates incentives to early retirement. Indeed, average retirement age is very low in West Germany (about age 59) and even lower in East Germany. This tendency towards early retirement is particularly hurting in times of population aging when the German social security contribution rate is expected to increase dramatically and will substantially exceed the rates in other industrialized countries.

German Pension Reform

German Pension Reform
Author: Christina Benita Wilke
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2009
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9783631588512

The German pension system was the first formal pension system in the world, designed by Bismarck nearly 120 years ago. It has been very successful in providing high and reliable pension levels at reasonable contribution rates. While the generosity of the German pension system is considered a great social achievement, negative incentive effects of past reforms in the 1970s and 1980s and population aging are threatening the very core of the system. This has led to fundamental pension reforms since 1992. Based on a detailed simulation model of the German pension system, this book provides a thorough assessment of the system and its reforms. It shows that the latest reforms have put the system back onto a stable path and moved it from the old monolithic towards a multi-pillar system.

Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World

Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World
Author: Jonathan Gruber
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 751
Release: 2004-03-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780226310183

Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World represents the second stage of an ongoing research project studying the relationship between social security and labor. In the first volume, Jonathan Gruber and David A. Wise revealed enormous disincentives to continued work at older ages in developed countries. Provisions of many social security programs typically encourage retirement by reducing pay for work, inducing older employees to leave the labor force early and magnifying the financial burden caused by an aging population. At a certain age there is simply no financial benefit to continuing to work. In this volume, the authors turn to a country-by-country analysis of retirement behavior based on micro-data. The result of research compiled by teams in twelve countries, the volume shows an almost uniform correlation between levels of social security incentives and retirement behavior in each country. The estimates also show that the effect is strikingly uniform in countries with very different cultural histories, labor market institutions, and other social characteristics.

Sustainability of the German Pension Scheme: Employment at Higher Ages and Incentives for Delayed Retirement

Sustainability of the German Pension Scheme: Employment at Higher Ages and Incentives for Delayed Retirement
Author: Lewicki, Maria Patricia
Publisher: KIT Scientific Publishing
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2014-03-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3731501716

The aging society and threatening old-age poverty are two major political topics in Germany for the next decades. Many modern employment biographies consist of atypical employment and discontinuities; both negatively impact the pension entitlements of the individuals. This work develops an inninnovative approach that offers flexibility to absorb demographic changes as well as labor market developments, without threatening the financial stability of the public pension scheme.

Public Finance and Public Policy

Public Finance and Public Policy
Author: Jonathan Gruber
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 806
Release: 2005
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780716786559

Chapters include: "Income distribution and welfare programs", "State and local government expenditures" and "Health economics and private health insurance".

Germany's Social Security System Under Strain

Germany's Social Security System Under Strain
Author: Horst Siebert
Publisher:
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2003
Genre: Old age pensions
ISBN:

Reviews Germany's social security system, describes the expansion of the system in the last decades, its impact on employment and growth, and discusses proposals for the reform of the system.

Early Retirement, Social Security and Well-being in Germany

Early Retirement, Social Security and Well-being in Germany
Author: Axel Börsch-Supan
Publisher:
Total Pages: 42
Release: 2006
Genre: Early retirement
ISBN:

Germans retire early. On the one hand, early retirement is very costly and amplifies the burden which the German public pension system has to carry due to population aging. On the other hand, however, early retirement is also seen as a much appreciated social achievement which increases the well-being especially of those workers who suffer from work-related health problems. This paper investigates the relation between early retirement and well-being using the GSOEP panel data. The general picture that emerges from our analysis is that early retirement as such seems to be related to subjective well-being, in fact more so than normal retirement. Early retirement most probably is a reaction to a health shock. Individuals are less happy in the year of early retirement than in the years before and after retirement. After retirement, individuals attain their pre-retirement satisfaction levels after a relatively short while. Hence, the early retirement effect on well-being appears to be negative and short-lived rather than positive and long. Whether this is an effect of retirement itself or a psychological adaptation to an underlying shock cannot be identified in our data and remains an open research issue waiting for a more objective measurement of health.

Growing Old in Dignity

Growing Old in Dignity
Author: Eugen Stumpf
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
Total Pages: 53
Release: 2011-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3656049467

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2011 in the subject Politics - Political Systems - Germany, grade: 1,0, University of applied sciences, Düsseldorf, course: Economics - MBA, Master of Business Administration, language: English, abstract: This paper surveys the situation of the German pension system after a sequence of reforms which started as a fully funded system implemented by Bismarck during the 1880s, with a mandatory retirement age of 70 years when male life expectancy at birth was less than 45 years. Today, life expectancy for men is more than 80 years. After a long and arduous debate in the German Bundestag, agreements on a comprehensive pension reform resulted in the pension reform of 1957, which mainly established changes such as the normal retirement age at 65, the retirement at the age of 60 for elderly unemployed, the retirement for women at the age of 60 and, at last, the introduction of dynamic benefits indexed to gross wages which had an immediate impact on the economic wellness of current retirees. Thereafter, the 1972 reform made the German pension system one of the most generous of the world, as it mainly opened the public pension insurance system to all workers with generous terms for back-payment of contributions and eased the terms and conditions for early retirement by the implementation of the so-called 'flexible retirement', as discussed in chapter 1 of this paper. The following pension reforms discussed in this paper are the "Riester reform" of 2001 with the following main objectives: the sustainability of contribution rates in order to secure the long-term stability of pension levels and the spread of supplementary private pension savings, and continuing with the efforts of the Rürup commission which culminated in the "Rürup reform" of 2004 which the objective to stabilize contribution rates while at the same time ensuring appropriate future pension levels. Based on the above, it can be concluded that on the whole the sequence o

Childlessness in Europe: Contexts, Causes, and Consequences

Childlessness in Europe: Contexts, Causes, and Consequences
Author: Michaela Kreyenfeld
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2017-01-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319446673

This book is published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This open access book provides an overview of childlessness throughout Europe. It offers a collection of papers written by leading demographers and sociologists that examine contexts, causes, and consequences of childlessness in countries throughout the region.The book features data from all over Europe. It specifically highlights patterns of childlessness in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, Austria and Switzerland. An additional chapter on childlessness in the United States puts the European experience in perspective. The book offers readers such insights as the determinants of lifelong childlessness, whether governments can and should counteract increasing childlessness, how the phenomenon differs across social strata and the role economic uncertainties play. In addition, the book also examines life course dynamics and biographical patterns, assisted reproduction as well as the consequences of childlessness. Childlessness has been increasing rapidly in most European countries in recent decades. This book offers readers expert analysis into this issue from leading experts in the field of family behavior. From causes to consequences, it explores the many facets of childlessness throughout Europe to present a comprehensive portrait of this important demographic and sociological trend.