The ongoing privatization of pensions – the shift from state to private responsibility for old age retirement income – raises fundamental issues of social and participatory rights. While pay-as-you-go-financed public pension systems face sustainability problems due to an ageing society, the recent financial crisis reveals the problematic nature of funded private pensions that fall short of expected returns. What have been the experiences in developed multipillar systems in providing adequate pensions for all? What can be learned for those pension systems currently under reform? This edited boo ... More

The ongoing privatization of pensions – the shift from state to private responsibility for old age retirement income – raises fundamental issues of social and participatory rights. While pay-as-you-go-financed public pension systems face sustainability problems due to an ageing society, the recent financial crisis reveals the problematic nature of funded private pensions that fall short of expected returns. What have been the experiences in developed multipillar systems in providing adequate pensions for all? What can be learned for those pension systems currently under reform? This edited book compares the varieties of pension governance in ten European countries. It contrasts the experience of developed multipillar systems such as Britain, the Netherlands, and Switzerland with emerging multipillar systems in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden as well as the still dominantly Bismarckian social insurance systems of Belgium, France, Germany, and Italy. Each of the ten country chapters investigates how and why old age income responsibilities have been shifted from the state to employers, unions, and individuals. The country experts first describe the changing public–private pension mix and then discuss the particular features of the private (occupational and personal) pensions. They answer four major questions: who is covered, what kind of benefits, who pays, and who governs private pensions? In addition, three comparative analyses review the long-term institutional change from public to multipillar pension systems, map the cross-national variations in regulation and governance of private pensions, and investigate the consequences for old age income inequality in Europe.