Early retirement patterns in Europe: a comparative panel study

Publication type

Thesis/Degree/Other Honours

Author

Publication date

June 1, 2005

Abstract:

The issue of early retirement is at the heart of the current discussion on reshaping the welfare states in Europe. The debate focuses on retaining older workers in the labour market and central to this debate is the incentive structure of most European social security systems. It is argued that most social security systems in general, and pension systems in particular, provide strong incentives in pulling the older workers out of the labour market. There are clear differences between European social security systems and it is argued that a comparative research of these systems and their effects on the early retirement behaviour of older workers if of use to the current debate on reshaping the welfare state. It is such a comparative research that I conducted for my dissertation, which I am going to defend in a few weeks. First, I researched the similarities and differences in European early retirement institutions, including unemployment and disability schemes. I specifically accounted for those latter schemes, since it is believed that these are used as alternatives to formal early retirement schemes. For the empirical analyses, I used panel data from a large number of European countries. My research shows that both less tight entitlement conditions and high generosity of early retirements schemes exert a disincentive effect on staying in work for the older worker. This study also reveals some interesting relations between the several parts of the early retirement system, which suggest that policies to retain older workers in the labour market not only concern a reform of the pension system, but also of other parts of the welfare state.

Subjects

Notes

PhD thesis Tilburg University, Netherlands

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