Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

innovative ideas of work-life balance spread at firm level and allow them for meeting their
labour/leisure expectations at the same time. Scholars have since long voted in favour of a
simultaneous – instead of subsequent – structuring of life phases (Deller et al. 2008: 142ff).
In a situation of value change in Western industrialised nations when the importance of
duty, on the one hand, and the opportunity to pursue one´s personal interest, on the other
hand, as drivers for work motivation is reshuffled (Kühnlein/Böhle 2002: 96), this
recommendation is valid even more.
As regards pull factors, a chance to prolong working lives rests in the fact that
institutional changes, which aim in the direction of cutting existing early exit patterns and
imposing malus rules on those who nevertheless want to exit early, are beginning to show
effect on both the actual behaviour of individuals and on their preferences. However, the
impact is more visible in the case of Germany as respective reform elements have come into
force at an earlier time.
However, even then, structural factors have determining power. In times of tight labour
markets (which have been, after a first one-year long recovery, put under more pressure
after the stock-market crash in late 2008), firms will still make decisions in the realm of
employee exit policy to the detriment of older workers, and the workers concerned will
accede to it for reasons of peer pressure and the preference for the status of early retiree
instead of being unemployed (Naschold et al. 1994b: 153). Especially in Poland, as the firm
case studies have shown, workers are willing to accept a lower pension level in order to
escape the risk of unemployment and for reasons of peer pressure.
The gender-specific exit preferences which are shaped both endogenously and
exogenously also hinder the prolongation of working life. In opinion surveys, women in
both countries have opted for a lower retirement age than men (Zgierska 2007: 7; Engstler
2004: 13); the differences between the sexes are higher in Poland. My establishment-level
studies have revealed that there is a collusion of interests in Poland to use early retirement
for women as a vehicle for early exit e.g. in times of restructuring. This is reflected at
aggregate level in an average exit age of Polish women which is four years lower than that
of German women and of Polish men (Eurostat data from 2007). Those cross-national
differences can be explained with social norms related to gender and family. In Germany,
the dominant cultural model of family is “male breadwinner/female part-time carer model”,
which is reflected in a high share of female part-time workers caring for children. In
Poland, childcare is to a great degree facilitated by involving grandparents – the dominant
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