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Abstract: This article investigates the interplay between social policies, industrial relations, and housing regimes in order to explain the development of occupational pensions. The structure of statutory provisions and industrial relations of the Bismarckian “latecomer” Belgium make it appear a “most likely case” for a successful transition into “mature” multi‐pillarism. The continued importance of outright homeownership in the retirement package turns out to be a key in explaining that such a transition largely failed in Belgium. In the Netherlands, on the other hand, two financial crises have eroded the apparent advantages of securing the second‐tier function of retirement provisions by relying on prefunded occupational plans and a financialized housing regime. The crises provoked a drift away from the “high road” of second‐pillar pensions, and initiated a process that increases the importance of outright homeownership in the retirement package at the expense of generously funded occupational plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By embedding pre-funded occupational pensions into the status order of a neo-corporatist system of industrial relations, the Netherlands has developed a second pillar that is second to none in terms of size, inclusiveness and solidarity. But this has also led to a universal financialisation of retirement provision, making the income of the elderly population contingent on the vagaries of financial markets. Two financial crises within less than a decade ended the illusion that such generosity can come at a low price, and thus be reconciled with competitive labour costs. The Dutch government initiated a series of reforms that gave employers a partial exit from shouldering the risks of retirement, reduced generosity and recently also started to undermine the extent of solidaristic redistribution. Hence, occupational pensions are gradually being disembedded from the status order crucial for their comparative good performance in the past with regard to reconciling social and financial sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to illustrate how pension and housing systems together affect poverty among the elderly. We analyse Belgium, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands, each with different combinations of pension and housing institutions. Using EU-SILC data for 2009, we distinguish between income-poverty and deprivation, the former to evaluate the performance of pension systems and the latter to judge how the impact of housing systems on income-poverty translates into deprivation. The focus is on risk groups such as the separated, the widowed, the former self-employed and retirees with short or irregular employment histories. The findings are that pensions, since they often exclude particular groups, such as households with less than 25 years of employment, increase the elderly income-poverty risk for those groups. The risk of being income-poor is somewhat alleviated in the case of a generous flat-rate public pension, but even then households with less than 25 years of employment have higher levels of income-poverty. Outright home-ownership provides households the opportunity to live rent-free and thus yields income-in-kind. Housing systems in which home-ownership is dominant often also have high levels of outright home-ownership among the income-poor elderly, compensating for the low income-in-cash that they receive as a pension, thus reducing deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privatization entails a number of quite different aspects that overlap only to some extent: (1) responsibility in provision; (2) possibilities of exit from statutory plans; (3) the transfer of the administration and management of schemes from public bodies acting in a unitary non-competitive administrative environment to private sector actors acting in a more fragmented competitive market based environment; (4) the transfer of the risks of retirement from the collective to the individual; and (5) the ‘recommodification’ and ‘financialization’ of retirement risks. The paper develops a compound index of private pension provision based on a number of quantifiable variables (theoretical replacement rates of public plans, assets of funded pension schemes, private pension expenditure and coverage by private pension plans) that tries to tap into these different aspects. It can be used to empirically categorize the extent to which Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries have privatized their pension provision. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Policy-makers in advanced welfare states have increasingly expressed concerns over large numbers of working-age people claiming social security support. Accordingly, policies aimed at reducing the level of 'benefit dependency' have gained prominence. However, such policies rest on shaky empirical evidence. Systematic collections of national 'caseload' data are rare, social security programmes overlap and administrative categories vary over time. The internationally inconsistent treatment of national transfer programmes provides a further challenge for cross-national comparisons. This article first identifies and discusses several of these problems, and ways in which they may be addressed. It then employs administrative claimant data from six European countries as a way of illustrating trends over time and across countries. The underlying aim is to explore the scientific potential of benefit recipient numbers as an indicator for welfare state change over time and across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen Los responsables políticos en los Estados de bienestar han expresado cada vez más su inquietud sobre el elevado número de personas en edad de trabajar que reclaman el respaldo de la seguridad social. En consecuencia, han cobrado relevancia las políticas destinadas a reducir el grado de dependencia de las prestaciones. No obstante, estas políticas se apoyan sobre una base empírica poco sólida. Apenas existen recopilaciones sistemáticas de datos derivados de los beneficiarios, los programas de la seguridad social se solapan unos con otros y las categorías administrativas varían a lo largo del tiempo. Las disparidades en el tratamiento de los programas de transferencias monetarias entre unos países y otros suponen un obstáculo adicional para establecer comparaciones. En este artículo se detectan y analizan varios de estos problemas, así como las formas en que pueden abordarse. Para representar las tendencias a lo largo del tiempo se utilizan datos administrativos de los solicitantes de prestaciones de seis países europeos. Lo que pretendemos con ello, principalmente, es estudiar el potencial científico que tienen los datos sobre los beneficiarios de las prestaciones como indicadores de la evolución del Estado de bienestar a lo largo del tiempo y en los diversos países. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Auszug In entwickelten Sozialstaaten sind Entscheidungsträger zunehmend besorgt darüber, dass zahlreiche Menschen im arbeitsfähigen Alter eine Unterstützung durch die soziale Sicherheit beantragen. In der Folge sind Strategien zur Verringerung der Zahl der 'Leistungsabhängigen' vermehrt in den Blickpunkt gerückt. Diese Strategien sind allerdings empirisch nicht sehr zuverlässig hergeleitet. Nur selten werden nationale Falldaten systematisch gesammelt, die Programme der sozialen Sicherheit überschneiden sich oft und die administrativen Kategorien verändern sich über die Zeit. Eine weitere Schwierigkeit für länderübergreifende Vergleiche entsteht durch die international uneinheitliche Kategorisierung der Transferprogramme. Dieser Artikel beschreibt und diskutiert zunächst einige dieser Probleme und zeigt Wege auf, wie sie angegangen werden können. Sodann wird anhand administrativer Antragstellerdaten aus sechs europäischen Ländern aufgezeigt, welche Trends über die Zeit und in den verschiedenen Ländern bestehen. Vorrangig soll ermittelt werden, wie groß das wissenschaftliche Potenzial ist für die Nutzung von Leistungsempfängerzahlen als Indikator für den Wandel des Sozialstaats über die Zeit und über die Länder hinweg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé Les gouvernements des Etats-providence développés manifestant de plus en plus d'inquiétude face au nombre élevé de personnes en âge de travailler qui sollicitent des prestations sociales, les politiques visant à réduire le degré de «dépendance à l'égard des prestations» ont pris de l'importance. Toutefois, ces politiques sont élaborées sur la base de données empiriques peu fiables. En effet, rares sont les pays qui collectent de manière systématique des données nationales sur les effectifs de bénéficiaires. De surcroît, certains régimes de sécurité sociale se chevauchent et les catégories administratives évoluent au fil du temps. Enfin, le fait que le traitement des systèmes nationaux de transfert ne soit pas harmonisé à l'échelle internationale complique encore les comparaisons entre pays. Dans le présent article, nous commençons par identifier et analyser certains de ces problèmes et examinons les solutions qui pourraient leur être apportées. Nous nous appuyons ensuite sur des données administratives sur les effectifs recueillies dans six pays européens pour illustrer l'évolution de ces effectifs dans le temps et dans les différents pays. Nous cherchons ainsi à apprécier dans quelle mesure les données sur les effectifs de bénéficiaires de prestations pourraient constituer un indicateur scientifique de nature à apporter un éclairage sur l'évolution de l'Etat-providence dans le temps et dans les différents pays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]