The reform discussions during winter 2014/2015 in German pension policy focused on making retirement more flexible by making part-time work and part-time retirement more attractive. While gradual retirement appears to be a sensible institution both from an economic and social point of view and is a popular demand in opinion polls, it is highly controversial becauase it might be used as a path to early retirement.
This project evaluates various refrom proposals. It employes data by the German pension insurance as well as SAVE and SHARE data linked with these administrative data. We analysed who is eligible for certain reform proposals and their distributional impact.
Three working papers were published covering various aspects of the discussion (see MEA Discussion Paper 04/05/06-2014). The reform that was implemented as of July 2017 followed an earlier proposal made by MEA researchers (see MEA Discussion Paper 243-2011).
Inspired by the debate we conducted the project on international experiences in flexible retirement rules (see project "Dangerous Flexibility - Retirement Reforms Reconsidered" published in Economic Policy in 2018).
