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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]
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