The neoliberal pension reform in Germany and its genesis

From life assurance to the poverty of old age for millions

Abstract

The reform of the old age pension scheme the last twenty years was part of an international transformation process of the old-age insurance systems since the 1980s. The core element is the conversion from the pay-as-you-go systems to capital-funded models with a shifting to individual provision and risk taking. This politically intended break shows fatal distributional and economic effects in the present. Neither a more stable, more cost-effective, more efficient old-age insurance could be established for the majority of employees, nor did the capital market-financed pension system automatically promote innovation and economic growth. In the end, most of the political promises and allegations of the reformists have already been rejected by real social and economic developments. Poverty among the elderly will rise in the near future dramatically due to the deformation of the statutory pension system, the great distortions on the labour market and rising inequality. Nevertheless, the pension consensus still holds at the moment but a radical paradigm shift and a clear revision of past reforms are overdue.