Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

etire, because we have very large severance payments, and we also have jubilee awards
paid out every five years.” In total, those sums can reach the amount of yearly wages.
Another form of push factors is the agitation by the employer or by trade unions.
Workers in a dairy company, in a chemicals company, and in two energy suppliers are
actively informed about the available options and even convinced to make use of early exit.
In times of downsizing, some firms choose less subtle methods and older workers are
actively pushed out. That occurred in eight firms. In some cases, that was sparked by the
concern for the material security of workers:
“We have (…) been convincing them to leave. Because we knew that there can be a situation when
we do not have work for them, and they will leave on worse conditions.” (Firm PL-7_HRM)
In other cases, older workers were convinced to go in order to secure workplaces for
persons without entitlements to social security benefits:
Older workers in many cases decided to leave on their own out of sympathy for younger
colleagues or their own children, whose workplaces could that way either be secured or
created. In some firms, workers selected for dismissals were personally informed about the
situation and given a choice between signing a cancellation agreement and receiving a
higher severance payment as reward, or being dismissed with a lower compensation.
There is also a crowding-out of incumbent workers by their younger successors. E.g.,
the construction company wanted to clear vacancies for graduates of vocational schools at
the time of the first interview, and in a privatised utility, younger persons selected for
managerial positions had crowded out older workers who were then degraded and
encouraged to leave the firm.
In general, those factors reflect retirement motives recorded at aggregate level (Zgierska
2007: 5; MPiPS 2008: 50) and resemble the early exit motives presented in the section on
German case studies (4.2.7.) which demonstrates that structural factors – high
unemployment level and the process of downsizing in firms – play a role for making (or
enforcing) retirement decisions. A large difference to Germany is however the genderspecific
5- till 10-year gap in exit ages of women and men, and alternative income sources
for Polish pensioners in the form of shadow economy and opening up one´s own business
or working at one´s farm. Also the low life expectancy of Poles and the wish to enjoy last
years of life is seen by some interviewees as a motive of early withdrawal from work. A
specifically Polish push factor is being worn out by “revolutionary” changes in the country
and in the firm which contributes to low job satisfaction, a feeling of lagging behind, and a
general tiredness of work (named by 5 interviewees).
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