ISBN:
9053567402
,
9789053567401
Language:
English
Pages:
Online-Ressource (311 p)
Edition:
Online-Ausg. Palo Alto, Calif ebrary 2009 Electronic reproduction; Available via World Wide Web
Series Statement:
Changing welfare states
Parallel Title:
Print version The Reform of Bismarckian Pension Systems : A Comparison of Pension Politics in Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden
DDC:
368.430094
Keywords:
Old age assistance Government policy
;
Old age pensions Government policy
;
Public welfare
;
Science: general issues
;
Political geography
;
Hochschulschrift
;
Österreich
;
Altersversorgung
;
Reform
;
Frankreich
;
Deutschland
;
Italien
;
Schweden
Abstract:
Pension reform has emerged as a major political issue in most advanced welfare states. Sluggish economic growth and rising unemployment put public pension systems under increasing financial pressure. In combination with a rapidly ageing population in the decades to come, these pressures render major adjustements in pension policy design inevitable, especially in countries with costly earnings-related benefit arrangements. However, timely and successful adjustement is anything but guaranteed. Both cuts of pension benefits and increases in contribution levels are bound to be highly unpopular and entail massive political risks. Thus, pension politics these days is as much about adjusting pension arrangements to changing demographic and economic conditions as it is about overcoming widespread political resistance to reforms that impose tangible losses on large parts of the population. This study reveals striking differences in the extent to which pension policy makers were able to generate a sufficient political support basis for their reform initiatives. As a consequence, pension reform outcomes reach from successful restructuring of existing pension arrangements all the way down to instances of outright policy failure. By tracing the political process of pension reform in Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden since the late 1980s the book also provides us with deeper insights about the factors that facilitate - or impede - social policy reforms in the context of fiscal austerity
Description / Table of Contents:
Table of Contents; List of Tables/List of Figures; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1 The Need for Pension Reform:A Problem-Oriented Perspective; 2 An Empirical Overview of Policy Change in Bismarckian Pension Regimes; 3 The Politics of Pension Reform:An Actor-Centred Explanatory Framework; 4 Sweden:Policy-Oriented Bargaining; 5 Italy:Corporatist Concertation in the Shadow of EMU; 6 Germany:From Consensus To Conflict; 7 Austria:Reform Blockage by the Trade Unions; 8 France:Adverse Prerequisites for a Pension Consensus; 9 Conclusion; Appendix I Summary Description of Retirement Systems (1986)
Description / Table of Contents:
Appendix II Chronology of National Pension ReformsAppendix III Glossary of Terms; Notes; Bibliography; Index
Note:
Includes bibliographical references (p. 289-306) and index
,
Electronic reproduction; Available via World Wide Web
URL:
OAPEN Library: download the publication
URL:
OAPEN Library: description of the publication
