The gender implications of pension reforms. General remarks and evidence from selected countries

This paper critically analyses the gender dimensions of pension schemes, drawing detailed examples from pension reform schemes in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The paper provides the analysis along two axes: structures regulating the access to benefits and conditions that determine benefit levels. The paper highlights some of the most significant features of pension systems that have a gender impact.

The paper also looks at some of the obstacles in conceptualising gender equality in pension policy, including the following:

• individual pension rights versus derived rights
• equal treatment and labour market inequalities
• pension age equalisation
• increasing diversity of interests of women regarding old age security.

The paper raises several points on the gender dimensions of pension systems, including the following:

• the male breadwinner model has been the policy stereotype of many welfare states. It assumes that men were integrated into the welfare state as workers, while women were primarily viewed as wives and mothers
• pension systems, and welfare state provisions are generally linked with the labour market, which itself is structured along gender lines. For example, as women have entered the labour market, they have occupied ranks of lower pay and lower responsibilities. As a result, a pension system based on the individual accumulation of pension rights thus exacerbates gender inequality in the labour market, and is harmful to women as a group
• derived pension rights, particularly spousal and survivor’s benefits, are a double-edged sword for women: they may perpetuate the traditional male-breadwinner model of the family, and they have been shown to be more advantageous for single-earner households. However, spousal and survivor’s benefits are often a source of income security in old age.

[adapted from author]