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Sophie Muriel Giessner
Faculty of Business
Sophie Giessner
Gewuerzmuehlstrasse 19
80538 Munich
Germany
[email protected]
0049 (0) 1749092264
Early retirement, retirement behavior, pension system
Abstract:
1. Problem statement/rationale, including reference to key literature:
The broad academic work is the interest of employee's motivation to retire early. The thesis examines
the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence early retirement of blue and white collar workers in
Germany. Caused by demographic changes, this issue has become an important cost factor for,
firstly, the Germany government and its pension system and, secondly, for companies which lose high
qualified employees too early. On average, German citizens retire 3.9 years earlier than the legal
retirement age (Statista, 2010). Therefore, the Federation quantifies additional annual expenditure of
30bn Euro and records losses of 43bn Euro in 2013 (ibid).
To relieve the pension scheme the German government set up the statutory retirement age to 67 in
2012. However, employees still often retire before the defined age limit which puts significant pressure
on Germans pay-as-you-go-system. In fact, early retirement of individuals does not only mean the
stop on pension contributions it also means that the early retirees start gaining pension payment too
early (Miah et al., 2007). Moreover, predictions of the demographic change shows that the number of
younger citizens, who keep the pay-as-you-go system working, steadily declines. In addition to that,
Schreurs et al. claim that individuals’ life expectancy increased significantly which burdened the
retirement system with longer pension payments (2010).
International research shows that health issues especially metal illness is one of the main reasons for
early retirement. Miah et al. claim that this is often based on jobs with a high physical workload or
within jobs with a low work satisfaction (2007). Furthermore, even soft factors as more time for the
family or self-fulfillment are reasons to quit working before the statutory retirement age (Marjan et al.,
2013). In the tailored case of Germany, wrong incentives by the German government might also be an
early retirement reason. Those incentives may be seen in the recent adopted law to retire after 45
years of working earliest in the age of 63 years without any pension deductions.
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The aim of the study is to examine the actual factors leading to early retirement decisions as the latter
significantly impacts fiscal policy in general and the government budget in particular. Hence, this
dissertation empirically ascertains the motivation drivers of both blue-and-white collar workers divided
in man and women. The goal is to give clear guidance primarily for the government what incentives
would help to stop the trend early retirement and, therefore, to help the pay-as-you-go-system survive.
2. Research design and methods of data collection and analysis or method inquiry:
The steps that would be taken include a series of qualitative interviews to identify early retirement
reasons of retirees. The characteristic of this dissertation is the research conduction with individuals
who already retired early. The interviews are a mixture of structured and semi-structured
questionnaires. This implies that most of the questions are given, however, there will be some
determined questions where the test person has the opportunity to give their individual feedback.
The literature review gives first impressions what the motivation of early retirement might be. Even if
the data is collected internationally parallelism in the nature of the answers can be taken in
consideration. Therefore, previous research of bordering countries of Germany with similar pension
schemes and similar mentality is used to archive a first overview of reasons for early retirement. To
collect data specifically tailored to the German market the German Federal Institute for Population
Research is predestined to support research in areas as retirement behavior. Based on the collected
ideas, the questionnaire will be tailored. To gain a holistic overview the qualitative research is divided
in men and woman, and blue-and-white collar workers 50 interviews (25 men, 25 women) and
approximately 40-60 minutes are realistic. Ideally, 12 (+- 1) white-collar and 12 (+- 1) blue-collarworker per gender. Finally, the data will be evaluated and analyzed with a standardized approach.
3. Main findings:
The study have not been started yet since the PhD candidate is still collecting data. According to prior
international research it can be assumed that education, income and health as well as financial
incentives by social security carrier plays a significant role in the early retirement behavior of the
population. Furthermore, prior researcher claim that soft factors as time for the family is also an
important factor if it comes to early retirement. However, it also says that individuals need a task to
give their live a meaning, even beyond retirement. The aim is to find out what kind of meaning they
need and how the answers can be adapted into political decisions.
4. Discussion of implications:
At this stage the implications can only be assumed based on previous research. Soft factors as time
for the family or personal fulfilment might be as important as physical health and incentives by the
retirement system. All of these are different incentives for early retirement. Tools as bridge working or
silver entrepreneurship will be analyzed and discussed with the test persons. The aspiration of figuring
out how the politics might counteract against the early retirement trend and to keep employees into
working life is the essence of the research. Optimally, the issue of early retirement has been topic of
several international researchers which gives an ideal fundament of further research.
5. List of key references/resources:
Marjan J.; Ybema, Jan Fekke; van der Beek, Allard J; Geuskens, Goedele A. (2013): 'All those things
together made me retire': qualitative study on early retirement among Dutch employees. In: BMC
public health 13, S. 516. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-13-516.
Miah, M. Solaiman; Wilcox-Gök, Virginia (2007): Do the sick retire early? Chronic illness, asset
accumulation and early retirement. In: Applied Economics 39 (15), S. 1921-1936. DOI:
10.1080/00036840600690165.
Schreurs, B.; van Emmerik, H.; Cuyper, N. de; Notelaers, G.; Witte, H. de (2011): Job demandsresources and early retirement intention. Differences between blue-and white-collar workers. In:
Economic and Industrial Democracy 32 (1), S. 47-68. DOI: 10.1177/0143831X10365931.
Sejbaek, Camilla S.; Nexo, Mette A.; Borg, Vilhelm (2013): Work-related factors and early retirement
intention: a study of the Danish eldercare sector. In: European journal of public health 23 (4), S. 611-
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616. DOI: 10.1093/eurpub/cks117.
Statista, 2010. Tatsächliches und gesetzliches Renteneintrittsalter nach Geschlecht im internationalen
Vergleich
im
Jahr
2010.
Available
at:
http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/160103/umfrage/renteneintrittsalter-im-internationalenvergleich/ [Accessed 24/08/2014]
Word Count
Max 800-1200 references excluded:
847
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