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Extended Abstract Form: Plymouth Doctoral Colloquium (oral and poster presentations) Plymouth University Name(s) of Author(s): Affiliated Institution(s): Address for Correspondence: Email Address for Correspondence: Telephone Number for Correspondence: Stream and Title No: Title of Paper or Poster: Keywords: 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. 1 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- 2 616. 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 We would like to publish extended abstracts in the UK PDC proceedings, please confirm if we have your permission to do so: Yes x No On completion please register and upload your extended abstract before the deadline here. For all other queries please email [email protected] 3