Comparing occupational welfare in Europe: The case of occupational pensions

The article provides an assessment to what extent reforms of occupational pensions (OP) have fostered a “risk shift” or increased social protection dualism across countries. The essay focuses on workers, whilst previous research primarily analyzed provision for current pensioners. The empirical analysis confirms that in countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden, increased private pension or (OP) provision does not necessarily lead towards social protection dualism and comprehensive risk shifts. Britain continues to be characterized by strong social protection dualism and entrenched social divides, creating “social policy enclaves”. Divisions of welfare are also very likely to be a feature of the German pension system in the future. The latter two countries have witnessed clear risk shifts and processes of dualization. The pension systems in Austria, Italy, and Spain have not witnessed paradigmatic changes, and continue to be primarily based on public/statutory pension schemes. The idea that multi-pillarization in itself fosters major risk shifts and dualization has to be reconsidered. Under specific conditions, encompassing OPs can be functionally equivalent to public pension schemes. However, countries relying on voluntarism with regard to OPs coverage tend to witness processes of dualization.