Pension systems and income inequality among the elderly in Europe

Pension system regulation has grown to a complex field of study; many actors have been setting up institutional arrangements, which serve two main purposes: poverty prevention and income maintenance in old age. This doctoral dissertation addresses four major research questions: Why is there cross-national variation of income received by the elderly? What implications do different institutional pathways of pension systems have for the income situation? What role do non-public pension systems play in the income-mix and for the development of inequalities? Which developments can be observed in the public-private income mix and generosity of the pension system? This monograph is a cross-national study of past and current pension system legislation and its relevance for the current income mix of the elderly; it is structured in two main blocks. A first part outlines a comprehensive framework that points to within- and between-country variation in old-age income security, which is an outcome of pension system characteristics, labour market attachment, and living arrangements. A second part focuses on comparative country-case studies in Europe that evaluate the interactions between specific pension systems characteristics set up by the various actors involved in pension system design. A specific emphasis is placed on the diversity of second-tier schemes and the growing relevance of multipillar pension systems