Regulating the Transition from Work to Retirement: Towards a New Distribution of Responsibilities between the State, Social Partners and Companies?

Germany has experienced a fundamental shift in the architecture of the pension system since its 2001 reforms, which introduced a new system of governance for old age security. The dominant public pension system became a three-pillar system as reforms reduced the benefit level of public pensions while subsidizing occupational pensions and private savings. New actors became involved with old age protection and actors once marginal gained increased importance, among them firms and social partners. This article traces the long-term consequences of the 2001 reforms in Germany by analysing how different actors addressed their new responsibilities for shaping workers’ transition from employment to retirement. Relying on a mixed methods research design, including a representative quantitative survey among companies with work councils, a qualitative analysis of different industries, case studies of companies, and analyses of collective agreements, we observe significant variation between some industries and companies who have developed life-course oriented options for their employees, while others have hardly taken up the issue. As existing options for early or flexible retirement were increasingly abolished in the public system, this issue shifted toward social partners and companies, and therefore from law to collective agreements and company agreements. As a result, the new architecture of old age security has introduced new inequalities between workers of different industries and even within companies. This article contributes to our understanding of the political dynamics accompanying demographic change across Europe and beyond by demonstrating the role of institutions for old age security in producing variegated forms of citizenship.