A Fragile Pillar: Statutory Pensions and the Risk of Old-Age Poverty in Germany
Stefan Arent (stefan.arent@bnetza.de) and
Wolfgang Nagl
FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, 2010, vol. 66, issue 4, 419-441
Abstract:
The statutory pension system is the most important source of income for senior citizens in Germany. Due to increasing disruptions in employment biographies since the 1970s and due to the mass unemployment in eastern Germany since the 1990s, there is a growing fear of postretirement poverty in Germany. We develop a microsimulation model to compare the distribution of statutory pension incomes for new retirees in 2020 with the incomes of new retirees in 2004. The pension income distribution is calculated for eastern and western Germany separately, for men and women, and for different skill levels. Throughout Germany, we find growing postretirement poverty, especially among low-skilled workers. Eastern Germany will lose its current advantage in high pensions and low inequality.
Keywords: statutory pension system; old-age poverty risk; pensions; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H55 I32 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/a-fragile-p ... 1628001522110x549271 (text/html)
Fulltext access is included for subscribers to the printed version.
Related works:
Working Paper: A Fragile Pillar: Statutory Pensions and the Risk of Old-age Poverty in Germany (2009) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mhr:finarc:urn:sici:0015-2218(201012)66:4_419:afpspa_2.0.tx_2-v
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Mohr Siebeck GmbH & Co. KG, P.O.Box 2040, 72010 Tübingen, Germany
order@mohrsiebeck.com
DOI: 10.1628/001522108X549271
Access Statistics for this article
FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis is currently edited by Alfons Weichenrieder, Ronnie Schöb and Jean-François Tremblay
More articles in FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis from Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Wolpert (wolpert@mohrsiebeck.com).