Dissolving the Bismarckian Pension Regime in Germany: An Example of Reforms Leading to a "Multi-Pillar" System

10.6265/TJSW.2011.9(2)2

Karl Hinrichs

Multi-pillar pension system ； Old-age security ； Pension reform ； Germany

臺灣社會福利學刊

9卷2期（2011 / 06 / 01）

91 - 133

英文

Most European welfare states belonging to the ”conservative” regime cluster (notably Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and Italy) had structured old-age security in a Bismarckian fashion: pay-as-you-go contributory social insurance schemes ensuring maintenance of status after retirement. Since about 1990, pension reforms in these countries have aimed at prolonging one's working life, will effect a lower level of public pensions and to fill the arising gap, supplementary private schemes have been introduced or strengthened. This new arrangement shifts the public-private mix of retirement income and represents a most profound structural change (or: ”recalibration”) that has put the respective retirement income systems on a ”multi-pillar” track. The author uses Germany to illustrate developments that also occurred in other Bismarckian welfare states and which will lead to similar outcomes. The article starts with a brief overview of the pension reforms legislated in Germany between 1989 and 2007. These changesnew policies meant that the public scheme was no longer expanding, but rather retrenching. The central element of the 2001 reform, the introduction of a voluntary, subsidized private pension savings scheme (the so called Riester-Rente), is examined in detail. The main institutional features and data on the development of this new scheme are presented, and the social consequences of this multi-pillar approach to reform are analyzed. It is shown that the path German pension policy embarked on in 2001 will lead to greater income inequality in old age and put future retirees at risk of insufficient income after retirement, thus increasing dependency on means-tested benefits. These foreseeable results are due to the combined impact of less adequate public pensions, atypical employment patterns/careers, and uneven participation in supplementary private pension schemes.

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