‘Disorientation’ in a Capricious Welfare Market: The Case of the German Pension System

The Fate of Social Modernity

“…Internationally, the idea of 'cost containment of old age expenditure' (Arcanjo 2019: 512) strain on the lives of twenty-first century elderly people, beyond the biological restrictions also related to old age (Jang 2019;Peris-Ortiz et al 2020;Ebbinghaus and Möhring 2022). For many of those looking ahead to life after work, the result is looming 'pension insecurity' (Olivera and Ponomarenko 2017) and 'disorientation' when it comes to retirement planning (Bode and Lüth 2021).…”

“…Recent pension policies have sought to push the financialisation of retirement further, by offering enhanced state subsidies and by obliging employers to sponsor stock-market-based occupational plans of the defined contributions type, with fewer guarantees in terms of investment protection. Given constant volatility in twenty-first century financial markets, the result has been an uncertain future of retirement income for larger sections of the citizenry (Bode and Lüth 2021). A growing part of the population is faced with the prospect of future old-age poverty, given that -regardless of the new basic benefit -wage replacement rates in the social security pillar are set to decrease further.…”

“…They also welcome public measures to foster young people and protect children. An important mitigating factor here is confidence in social protection institutions, as people tend to distrust these institutions when being at risk of social deprivation or worried because of retrenchment policies (Ebbinghaus and Naumann 2018;Taylor-Gooby et al 2019b;Bode and Lüth 2021). Apart from this, social divisions which are often purported to split public opinion, such as the much-debated generational conflict around pension provision, have been found to matter only modestly, regardless of the dynamics of demographic change (Hess et al 2017).…”

Marketisation policies in the neoliberal era: How culture and governance structures affect the introduction of market principles in local care policies

“…The welfare state has long been considered an institution that aims to organise social solidarity and restrict the potential of markets to create social risks and exclusion (Esping-Andersen, 1990). However, since the 1990s, many welfare states have been restructured according to principles of marketisation (e.g., Bode, 2012; Gingrich, 2011; Klenk and Pavolini, 2015) such as provider competition, the outsourcing of care services to for-profit providers, and the transformation of citizens requiring care into ‘consumers’ who ‘buy’ care services in ‘care markets’. During the 1990s and 2000s, such reforms were propagated by the Organization for Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Union (EU) and national governments, with the argument that markets and consumer choice are particularly efficient ways of organising LTC (Bode, 2012; Brennan et al, 2012; Gingrich, 2011; Theobald, 2015; Vabø, 2006).…”

“…Since the 1990s, as a reaction to the challenges of an ageing population, many European welfare states have considerably increased financial support and public provisions for long-term care (LTC) of the elderly (Bode, 2012; Ranci and Pavolini, 2013; Theobald, 2015). This restructuring of societal organisation as it pertains to care work overlaps with another major change in European welfare states, namely the strengthening of market principles in the organisation of social welfare service provision (Brennan et al, 2012; Burau et al, 2017; Clarke et al, 2007; Streeck, 2009).…”