The genderedness of future pensions: Disentangling the triangle of future pensions for Germany and Israel

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Patricia Frericks
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 543784571

This cooperative and comparative research project aims to gain insights into the future genderedness of pensions. In spite of the increased labor-market participation of women and profound changes in pension systems that in part improve their pension situation, central institutions in the field anticipate that pensions will remain gendered for a long time to come. It is well known that pension institutions, though not per se gender-specific in their formulation, affect genders differently starting at the so-called peak hour of life. The reasons behind this are insufficiently understood. We argue that to understand future gender pension gaps, one needs to examine the "triangle of future pensions" composed of three interlinked dimensions: the life-course norms as set in current pension systems, peoples’ understanding of these norms, and the translation of this understanding into concrete choices in pension-relevant factors. The research will be conducted as a country comparison to understand how women in different institutional contexts of pension systems differ in their pension-related behavior and how closely these differences match with theoretical expectations based on institutional incentives and restrictions. The cases Germany and Israel are of particular value since the institutional factors to build up pensions strongly differ, while social and cultural factors do not differ much. The methods we apply are (1) an institutional analysis to comprehend the current life-course norms of the pension systems and expected challenges for mothers in particular, applying the SCQUal method; (2) a quantitative analysis on aggregated data to inform succeeding interviews; (3) semi-structured interviews to determine how, why, and to what extent women understand and respond to old-age risks differently than expected. Our analysis focusses on women at the peak hour of life. To reflect social inequalities in general and gendered poverty risks in particular, we address both poverty-preventing pensions and those meant to maintain living standards, and we include mothers of varied social groups and familial statuses. The collaboration partners are complementary in their skills regarding the theoretical framework and the methods used. In combining the macro and the micro levels to comprehend the genderedness of current societies, we follow earlier studies’ results indicating that institutional and socio-economic conditions can have contextual importance but are insufficient in themselves to explain women’s different orientations and practices in terms of economic decisions, here future pensions. The research will contribute to welfare state research in various ways: in a comparative perspective on these two countries, on the gender perspective on social risks and pension marketisation, on social inequality in terms of social groups, and on methodological debates on social inequality. Thus, the research is relevant from scientific and societal perspectives.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Israel
• International Co-Applicant: Professorin Dr. Anat Herbst-Debby