Karen M. Anderson

Pension systems in affluent democracies are undergoing a process of privatisation and marketisation that will likely reinforce multi-pillar pension systems. Yet, most public opinion research so far investigates attitudes concerning parametric aspects of public pension programmes (pension spending, pension age, level of redistribution). We have very little understanding of individual preferences regarding the mix of public and non-public sources of their own retirement income. This study begins to fill this gap through an analysis of the preferred mix of pension income with the research question: What explains public preferences on the public-private pension mix? Using a novel cross-national survey in six European countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain), we assess the role of self-interest, ideology and institutional factors in shaping retirement income preferences. We find that self-interest (e.g. age), political ideology, and institutional arguments (i.e. national pension system design) explain pension income preferences.

This paper addresses patterns, trends, and “pockets” of old-age poverty in Western Europe and North America since 2000, with a focus on five of the more financially resilient countries: Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada and the United States. Despite major public pension retrenchment initiatives in several of these countries, increases in both the breadth and depth of old-age poverty have been limited in most of these countries. Increases in old-age poverty that did occur were largely “collateral damage” from across-the board cutbacks in pension replacement rates and eligibility that were not adequately compensated for by increases in means-tested or minimum pensions. Poor retirees have only rarely been targeted directly for retrenchment in these countries. The most consistent pattern in the case studies is the role of policy drift--the production of different old-age poverty outcomes as the social and fiscal context within which government programs operate change, but policies do not. It is the limited positive power of poor retirees (their inability to get policy changes enacted that favor them) rather than their negative power (inability to block changes that hurt them) that has been more important as a driver of increased old-age poverty where it has occurred.

Recent contributions to the comparative political economy literature claim that liberal market economies are vulnerable to asset booms and busts because of financial deregulation, shrinking welfare states and a political ideology emphasising financial self-sufficiency. This article examines the rapid expansion of mortgage lending in three coordinated market economies (CMEs): Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands. This expansion is puzzling given that all three countries are CMEs with generous welfare states. Yet the pattern of mortgage lending resembles the Anglo-Saxon or liberal market economies (LMEs) more than other CMEs. The article argues that mortgage bubbles in the small CMEs emerged as the unintended outcome of pairing neoliberal programmes to expand home ownership with collectivist housing institutions. This resulted in supply restrictions and rising property values which saddled households with extraordinarily high mortgage debts. In short, mortgage credit bubbles are not unique to Anglo-liberal welfare states and may have different origins.

This paper analyses three cases where unions and employers have embraced financialisation in occupational pension provision. The widespread use of funded occupational pensions in Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden is rooted in social partner agreement that collectively organised, capital funded pensions can be harnessed to generate secure income. External funding (legal separation of pension reserves from the employer) and administration were key elements in strategies to provide secure occupational pensions. The introduction of funded occupational pensions took place in the context of meagre and/or incomplete statutory provision and before the expansion of generous basic pension coverage starting in the 1930s. This sequencing had a ‘crowding in’ effect, because well-paid workers sought collective solutions to their pension gap. Over time, these arrangements came to encompass nearly the entire labour market. Unions and employers have developed distinctive strategies for limiting investment risks, limiting the involvement of private financial actors, and ensuring that the interests of plan participants and investment managers are aligned.