Statutory health insurance is a centerpiece of the German welfare state, which considers itself to be a "social insurance state." At the same time, due to a large volume of interpersonal redistributions that occur in health insurance, it is the most ambitious branch of the country's social...

Social insurance schemes have proved to be rather stable welfare state institutions enjoying broad popular support. It is widely assumed that the high degree of legitimacy is due to the insurance analogy because those schemes provide individually equitable returns on prior contribution payments....

The public pension scheme has been an important element of the successful model of 'Rhenish Capitalism' (social market economy) in post-war Germany. On the one hand, the promise to guarantee status maintenance during retirement sustained the incentives of the labor market in that it promoted...

In general, the policy domain of old-age pensions is characterized by institutional continuity and only incremental reforms. Since the late 1980s, in Germany a series of public pension reforms, all initiated in view of imminent population aging, have happened. In this paper it is looked into the...

One feature of recent pension reforms in OECD countries has been that more individual responsibility is transferred to employees and in particular to those approaching the end of their working life. Enlarged freedom of choice concerns the timing of retirement with corresponding consequences for...

"Der Beitrag bezieht sich auf eine Repräsentativumfrage unter beschäftigten Arbeitnehmern zu ihrer Arbeitszeitsituation, den Arbeitszeitwünschen und der Haltung zu Arbeitszeitverkürzungen. Die gegenwärtigen Arbeitszeitbedingungen sind ausgesprochen uneinheitlich - nicht nur hinsichtlich der...

"Konzepte einer 'Neuen Arbeitszeitpolitik' treten mit dem doppelten Anspruch auf, durch eine Individualisierung von Arbeitszeitregelungen arbeitsmarktpolitische Probleme lösen und darüber hinaus zur Humanisierung der Arbeit beitragen zu können. Selektivität und Realisierungschancen flexibler...