IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/erp/mzesxx/p0053.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Welfare State of the Civil (or Public) Servants in Europe: A Comparison of the Pension Systems for Civil (or Public) Servants in France, Great Britain, and Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Franz Rothenbacher

Abstract

The civil service in Europe has been undergoing profound changes since the 1980s. Two major developments are responsible for these changes: first, the high budget deficits of governments, and second, the demographic changes causing the share of pensioners to increase. These challenges have caused reactions on the part of governments which are rather similar in most European countries: reducing public sector employment is the most important strategy. Another strategy could be to reduce the salaries of public servants; however, this strategy is not easy to follow because there is a danger of state employment losing its attractiveness. A third strategy to deal with these problems is to reduce pension rights, which are still more favourable for employees in the public service than in the private sector. Against the background of these challenges, the paper focuses on a systematic comparison of the old age pension system in three countries: France, Great Britain and Germany. One main aim of the paper will be to elaborate the main structure of the pension schemes in the civil services in these countries, which, indeed, differ a lot, to relate them to the life chances of civil servants in their old age, and to evaluate the effects of pension policy reforms in the public sector in order to solve problems of population ageing. Thus, this contribution tries to investigate the relationship between the institutional level of pay determination and pension regulations and the life chances (incomes, pensions) of people working in the public sector. At the same time it aims at evaluating institutional regulations by looking at the outcomes of these institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Franz Rothenbacher, 2004. "The Welfare State of the Civil (or Public) Servants in Europe: A Comparison of the Pension Systems for Civil (or Public) Servants in France, Great Britain, and Germany," MZES Working Papers 74, MZES.
    • Handle: RePEc:erp:mzesxx:p0053
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/publications/wp/erpa/wp-74.html
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/publications/wp/erpa/../wp-74.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wolfgang Zapf, 1984. "Welfare production: Public versus private," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 263-274, April.
    2. Franz Rothenbacher, 1998. "European Scientific Socio-Economic Reporting: State and Possibilities of Development," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 291-328, July.
    3. Klaus-Dietrich Bedau, 1999. "Zur materiellen Lage der Senioren in West- und Ostdeutschland," DIW Wochenbericht, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 66(37), pages 667-678.
    4. Hughes, Gerard, 1988. "Irish Civil Service Superannuation Scheme," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number GRS139.
    5. Blake, David, 2003. "Pension Schemes and Pension Funds in the United Kingdom," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, edition 2, number 9780199243532.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eich, Frank, 2009. "Public sector pensions: Rationale and international experiences," EconStor Preprints 54560, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    2. Sheila Rose Darmaraj & Suresh Narayanan, 2019. "The Long-Term Financial Sustainability of the Civil Service Pension Scheme in Malaysia," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 18(1), pages 155-178, Winter/Sp.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard L. Johnson, 2000. "The effect of old-age insurance on male retirement : evidence from historical cross-country data," Research Working Paper RWP 00-09, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    2. Francesca Giambona & Mariano Porcu & Isabella Sulis, 2023. "Does education protect families' well-being in times of crisis? Measurement issues and empirical findings from IT-SILC data," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 32(1), pages 299-328, March.
    3. Blake, David, 2003. "What is a promise from the government worth?:: measuring and assessing the implications of political risk in state and personal pension schemes in the United Kingdom," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 24856, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Peter Diamond, 1998. "The Economics of Social Security Reform," NBER Working Papers 6719, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Emmanouil Platanakis & Charles Sutcliffe, 2017. "Pension Schemes, Taxation and Stakeholder Wealth: The USS Rule Changes," ICMA Centre Discussion Papers in Finance icma-dp2017-08, Henley Business School, University of Reading.
    6. Richard Disney & Carl Emmerson & Sarah Smith, 2004. "Pension Reform and Economic Performance in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s," NBER Chapters, in: Seeking a Premier Economy: The Economic Effects of British Economic Reforms, 1980–2000, pages 233-274, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Barria, Rodrigo & Pinter, Gabor, 2023. "Mispricing in inflation markets," Bank of England working papers 1034, Bank of England.
    8. Luciano Fanti, 2012. "PAYG pensions and fertility drop: some (pleasant) arithmetic," Discussion Papers 2012/146, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    9. Josiah, J. & Gough, O. & Haslam, J. & Shah, N., 2014. "Corporate reporting implication in migrating from defined benefit to defined contribution pension schemes: A focus on the UK," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 18-37.
    10. Eich, Frank, 2009. "Public sector pensions: Rationale and international experiences," EconStor Preprints 54560, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    11. Gabriele Zinna, 2016. "Price Pressures on UK Real Rates: An Empirical Investigation," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 20(4), pages 1587-1630.
    12. David Blake, 2003. "UK pension fund management after Myners: The hunt for correlation begins," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 32-72, June.
    13. David Blake, 2008. "What is a Promise from the Government Worth? Quantifying Political Risk in State and Personal Pension Schemes in the United Kingdom," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(298), pages 342-361, May.
    14. Alexander M. Danzer & Peter Dolton & Chiara Rosazza Bondibene, 2016. "Who Wins? Evaluating the Impact of UK Public Sector Pension Scheme Reforms," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 237(1), pages 38-46, August.
    15. Michael E. Drew, 2009. "The Puzzle of Financial Reporting and Corporate Short-Termism: A Universal Ownership Perspective," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 19(4), pages 295-302, December.
    16. Blake, David, 2001. "The United Kingdom Pension System: Key Issues," Discussion Paper 15, Center for Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    17. David Blake & Alberto G. Rossi & Allan Timmermann & Ian Tonks & Russ Wermers, 2013. "Decentralized Investment Management: Evidence from the Pension Fund Industry," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(3), pages 1133-1178, June.
    18. Gabriele Zinna, 2014. "Price pressures in the UK index-linked market: an empirical investigation," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 968, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    19. Ricardo Andrade-Pacheco & David J Savory & Alemayehu Midekisa & Peter W Gething & Hugh J W Sturrock & Adam Bennett, 2019. "Household electricity access in Africa (2000–2013): Closing information gaps with model-based geostatistics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-14, May.
    20. Amy Finkelstein & James Poterba, 1999. "Selection Effects in the Market for Individual Annuities: New Evidence from the United Kingdom," NBER Working Papers 7168, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:erp:mzesxx:p0053. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Melbeck (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mzmande.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.