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Free keywords:
responsibility; restructuring; part-time pensions; oil-price crisis; unemployment; older workers; early retirement; disability; pension age
Abstract:
After the first oil-price crisis, many (but not all) OECD countries used early retirement as an adaptation to industrial restructuration, mass unemployment, the social needs of older workers, and the employment needs of young and female job seekers. As the costs of an increasingly inactive population rose, however, while expected employment effects failed to materialize, reformers sought to reverse the course of ‘welfare without work’. Besides blocking the pathways of early retirement, disability, and long-term unemployment, welfare states are now stressing new forms of part-time pension, extension, and equalization of normal pension age, and they are trying to shift responsibilities and costs to individuals and firms.
