Demographic changes and pressure on public finances have led European countries to reform and restructure their public pension systems. Occupational pension schemes have gained ground and are significantly reshaped. It has been argued that this is leaving welfare systems for the elderly “more privatized, partly funded, more delayed and less sufficient” (Ebbinghaus 2012:183).
While reforms of public pension programs tend to share many features (e.g. retirement age, indexation, transfer of risk to individuals) there are many differences in the importance and governance of the occupational pension sector across countries. Occupational pensions in Europe can be provided voluntarily by employers, they can be made statutory or they can occur as a result of limited or more extensive collective agreements. Hence, reforming the new public/private interplay in pension provision highlights policy processes that involve specifically the social partners. A plausible hypothesis is that the altered role of the state opens up a space for other actors, but that the configurations of actors and the interests they promote will vary from one country to another (Trampusch 2007, 2009). Moreover, analysing pensions offers an interesting insight into the development of industrial relations in Europe.
In this workshop we are interested in exploring the ongoing transformations of national pension systems, with a particular focus at the changing role of occupational pensions, and the role that trade unions and collective bargaining have taken in this transformation process. We suggest three possible inroads to these issues:
- Analyses of the changing public-private mix of pensions, paying special attention to the role and design of both voluntary and contractual occupational pensions. Hence variation in pension coverage as well as differences between defined benefit and defined contributions as well as hybrid schemes will be relevant to map.
- The outcomes of the shifting pension mix: Analyses of how differences in pension levels (replacement rates) are related to the presence of collective decisions, for example collective agreements.
- Analyses of the political processes underlying the new public-private mixtures in pension provision. What is the role of collective bargaining, and how do bargaining processes and political processes interact?
We invite both single country studies and comparative work.
The workshop is planned as a two-day event. The aim is to bring together scholars working on these issues from around Europe with the purpose of developing articles for a planned special issue in the journal Transfer in 2018
We are able to fund travel and accommodation for accepted participants.
Please send abstracts to Jon M. Hippe, Fafo, Norway () or Anne Skevik Grødem () no later than May 6th. You are also welcome to contact Jon Hippe if you have any queries about the workshop.