Suchergebnisse

In western economies with aging populations, organizations are increasingly challenged to understand and manage employees' retirement expectations. At the same time, employees' relationships to retirement decisions and the age at which they expect to retire are likely to change as their careers unfold. This article seeks to inform the careers and management literatures on factors contributing to retirement intentions at different career stages. Using a sample of mid- and late career professionals with MBAs, we find that mid-career professionals expect to retire three years earlier than those in late career (age 62 versus age 65.) Work centrality is associated with intentions to retire later, while positive retirement attitudes and higher income are associated with intentions to retire earlier. Furthermore, the expected retirement age is more sensitive to income at mid-career (than at late career) and is more sensitive to work centrality at late career (than at mid-career). We discuss implications for careers research and for human resource management practice.

The aim of the article is to analyse and evaluate the anticipated consequences of the changes to the statutory retirement age in Poland, which will be introduced starting 1 October 2017. Despite the lengthening life expectancy in Poland, the Polish government decided to reduce the statutory retirement age and set it at the level of 60 years for women and 65 years for men. This was the realization of promises of president Andrzej Duda and of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) made in the election campaigns of 2015. It was also a reversal of the reform by the previous government, which had introduced a gradual extension of the statutory retirement age starting in 2011. The reduction of the statutory retirement age in Poland will have a significant impact on the economic and social situation in the country, as well as on the sustainability of the Polish pension system. The expected impact on the labour market, the dynamics of GDP and the general macroeconomic situation will be negative. Also, the deficit in the Social Insurance Fund will increase. Microeconomic analysis shows significant threats (for example lower pension benefits, lower replacement rates in the pension system, greater poverty risk in old age). Evaluation of the social impact of changes in the retirement age is more complex. Due to their individual life situations, many Polish citizens are ready to accept even lower pension benefits if they then have a chance to retire at the age of 60 or 65, but many others are ready to work longer. The introduction of a minimum retirement age of 60 for women and 65 for men does not imply an obligation, but a right to retire which one may take advantage of or not. The author points out the public educational activities that should be introduced to make decisions about retirement or working longer more rational.

Demographic ageing and the necessity of raising the retirement age is one of the most frequently debated topics among European welfare policy experts. This study used prospect theory as developed in behavioural economics to explain public attitudes towards pension reforms. It argues that, in line with prospect theory, negative incentives are more useful in changing people's attitudes in favour of a higher statutory retirement age than are positive incentives. Therefore, in the case of increasing life expectancy, defined‐contribution schemes that apply actuarial formulae linking the level of starting monthly pension benefits to life expectancy are more useful in promoting a higher retirement age than conventional defined‐benefit schemes, which typically do not forge an automatic connection between longevity and starting pensions. The implications of prospect theory for attitudes towards pension reforms were tested using Eurobarometer survey data collected in 2004 and 2009 in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia.

We find that segments of society that have shorter life expectancy can expect a lower income from their pensions and lifetime utility due to the longevity of other groups participating in the same pension scheme. Linking the pension age to average life expectancy magnifies the negative effect on the lifetime utility of those who suffer low longevity. Furthermore, when the income of those with greater longevity increases, those with shorter life expectancy become even worse off. Conversely, when the income of those with shorter life expectancy increases, they end up paying more into the pension scheme, which benefits those who live longer. The relative sizes of the low‐ and high‐longevity groups in the population determine the magnitude of these effects. We calibrate the model based on data on differences in life expectancy of different socioeconomic groups and find that low‐income workers suffer from a 10–13% drop in pension benefits from being forced to pay into the same scheme as high‐income workers.

Within a politico-economic model we first establish three hypotheses: (i) Retirees generally prefer a higher retirement age than workers, whereby just retired individuals prefer the highest retirement age, (ii) in equilibrium the level of the legal retirement age is increasing in longevity and (iii) decreasing in the public pension replacement rate. We then test these hypotheses empirically. Employing micro data for Germany we corroborate the first hypothesis with descriptive regressions and a fuzzy regression discontinuity (FRD) design. We show that just retired individuals are indeed most in favor of an increase in the legal retirement age. On the basis of cross country panel IV regressions we provide evidence for the second and third hypothesis. We demonstrate that a one percentage point increase in the share of the elderly increases the legal retirement age by 0.3 to 0.5 years, and that a 10 percentage point increase in the replacement rate reduces the legal retirement age by 0.5 to 3 years. We conclude that if policy contains the generosity of public pensions, increasing the legal retirement age becomes politically more feasible.