Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

entry into retirement, the old-age pension for the severely handicapped and the disability
pension were taken into focus which had for a long time invited evasive strategies of
persons trying to avoid permanent benefit reductions. For the receipt of the old-age pension
for severely handicapped persons between the age of 60 and 63, permanent deductions were
introduced. With regard to disability pensions, the delineation between the disability
pension for persons with general incapacity to work (Erwerbsunfähigkeitsrente) and the
disability pension for persons incapable to work in their profession
(Berufsunfähigkeitsrente) was replaced with the full or partial work incapacity pension
(Erwerbsminderungsrente). However, due to objections of trade unions and Social
Democrats, the newly elected Red-Green government postponed the restrictions in disability
pensions and old-age pensions for the severely handicapped to the year 2000 and introduced
transitory periods. The controversial elements were passed at last in 2001, and ATZ was
closed for new entrants from 2010.
In 2007, a law raising the retirement age to 67 (Rentenversicherungs-
Altersgrenzenanpassungsgesetz) was legislated despite fierce opposition from unions and
counterarguments from scholars who claimed that the reform will undermine the adequacy
of pension income (Nürnberger 2007, Bäcker 2006, Brussig/Knuth 2007). The proponents
saw the reform as a step in the direction of an increase of the factual retirement age and as
solution for the financial strain on the German pension system (Reimann 2007; Köhler
2007; BDA 2007). The higher retirement age will be phased in for persons born between
1947 and 1963 in two paces: by one month per year of birth till 2023, and by two months
from 2024 till 2029.
The presented reform elements introduced several pathways of early exit in the German
old-age pension and disability pension system. A ´pathway of early exit´ can be understood
as
“an institutional arrangement or – in most cases – a combination of different institutional
arrangements that are sequentially linked to manage the process of transition to retirement, that is,
the period between exit from work and entry into the normal old-age pension system” (Jacobs et al.
1991: 198).
Jacobs et al. distinguish between the ´unemployment pathway´, ´the pre-retirement
pathway´ and the ´health pathway´, hereby counting early retirement pensions as located
within ´the normal old-age pension system´. Ebbinghaus, in turn, recognises six pathways
(2002: 134ff), as the utilisation of the early retirement pension is linked to a different
motivation and employment history than the standard retirement pension – the early pension
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