Governance of Supplementary Pensions in Europe (GOSPE):
Cross-national Variations in Participation and Social Inequality

Funding: DFG
Projectcoordinator: Bernhard Ebbinghaus
Researchers at MZES: Mareike Gronwald, Tobias Wiß, Jörg Neugschwender + nine country teams

The shift towards non-state supplementary pensions across Europe raises fundamental issues regarding governance especially in respect to guaranteeing basic participatory and social rights. As a result of different state or collective regulation, the coverage, the benefit formula, and the funding modes vary across supplementary pension systems. Based on country studies, this international project compares the evolution of supplementary pensions, focusing on the role of the state and social partners in regulating private and occupational pensions.

The project investigates the impact of these pension governance modes: The study will show how different social groups (such as full-time/part-time employed, normal/atypical workers) are insured through supplementary pensions, how their interests are represented in such pension funds, and how their retirement income will be affected by national and sector-specific contexts. The comparison of Germany with nine European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, UK) provides sufficient variations in pension governance to systematically study their differential impact on insurance coverage, participatory rights, benefit rules, and social risk pooling. The main results of the project will be (1) detailed country studies by these experts, and (2) a database on national supplementary pension systems that systematically joins quantitative and qualitative information following a standardized and comparable format. In addition, a special study will analyze the differential impact on social inequality using micro-level income data. Project results will be presented at an international conference and published as an edited volume.

Out now:

The Varieties of Pension Governance
Pension Privatization in Europe
Edited by Bernhard Ebbinghaus
Oxford University Press
480 pages | 234x156mm
978-0-19-958602-8 | Hardback £60.00 | March 2011

• Contributors are pension policy experts
• Contains in-depth country studies

The ongoing privatization of pensions - the shift from state to private responsibility for old age retirement income - raises fundamental issues of social and participatory rights. The recent financial market crisis makes the problematic nature of funded private pensions that fall short of expected returns dramatically clear. What have been the experiences in developed multipillar systems? What can be learned for those pensions systems currently under reform? This edited book compares the varieties of pension governance in ten European countries. Contrasting the experience of developed multipillar systems such as Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Switzerland with the recent shift toward private occupational and personal pensions in Belgium, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, and Sweden. The country chapters investigate how and why old age income responsibilities are being shifted to employers, unions, and individuals. They describe the changing public and private pension mix, and describe the particular features of the private occupational and personal pensions. In particular this book discusses four major questions: who is covered, what kind of benefits, who pays, and who governs? Three comparative analyses provide an additional value, describing the long-term institutional change from public to multipillar pension systems, the variations in regulation and governance of private pensions, and the consequences for income inequality in old age. This book combines the benefits of a reference work - ten up-to-date country studies of major pension systems in Europe - with three cross-national comparative empirical analyses that provide comprehensive information on important aspects of the reform development, societal governance, and social outcomes of pension systems.

Look inside: http://www.amazon.co.uk

More information: Book Announcement

Link to order the book:  http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199586028.do