Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

increasingly engaged in that issue). I seek the explanation in other available ways of early
exit, and in the low bargaining position of impaired workers vis-á-vis the management.
The shorter period of receipt of the earnings-related unemployment benefit has had a
limited effect on firm behaviour, as most firms in my sample rely on the ATZ pathway and
do not use the unemployment pathway to early exit based on the ´59 rule´ any more.
However, in two firms which utilise that option, it has had a ´positive effect´: both the
company management is not willing to pay a higher compensation and workers do not want
to cope with the threat of unemployment coupled with the receipt of the low means-tested
unemployment benefit (AL-Geld II).
The old-age pension for women was seldom used as a vehicle for early exit, with the
exception of three firms. One example of ´negative reaction´ shall be named for reasons of
its singularity. The bank, which is an unusual case because of the wide array of both
branch-wide and firm-level pre-retirement schemes, plans to couple the firm-level preretirement
schemes with the seniority pension starting in 2012 (after the expiry of the oldage
pension for women), which is an example of instrument substitution (Casey 1989).
Raised retirement ages (with the exception of ´retirement at 67´, which will be treated
separately) and pension deductions in case of early receipt have had mixed effects, but
affected a larger number of firms. Reasons are that coping with those reform elements is
unavoidable – even if a firm renounces the unemployment or disability pathway to early
exit, it cannot evade the utilisation of old-age pensions by workers and may utilise it in the
final result as a flexible instrument for personnel adjustments. However, due to long
phasing-in periods, and to the willingness of a large group of workers to cope with
permanent deductions, those reforms have not had yet the intended effect upon all firms.
Moreover, firms which showed a ´positive reaction´ to one reform element, often at the
same time showed a negative adaptation pattern in another respect.
In some firms, the ATZ pathway was closed (or planned to be closed) altogether for
reasons of to low flexibility and too high costs, or the works council agreements on ATZ
adapted the preferred entry and exit age from the scheme to risen retirement ages.
´Negative reactions´ in the form of (higher) compensation payments for pension
deductions were more often. The prime example here is a high-tech firm where the
successive raising of retirement ages resulted in ever higher severance payments – the
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