Verlängerte Erwerbsbiografi en : Triebkräft e, Grenzen, soziale Ungleichheiten

For more than a decade, the labour market participation of older workers has been significantly increasing in Germany. This development is driven by reforms in pensions and labour market policy, and in particular by the regulation of retirement transitions. These reforms provide limited opportunities for early retirement. However, the chances for workers to reach a regular old-age pension at statutory pension age directly after leaving employment (and not unemployment, non-employment or sickness) differ with respect to the exposure to specific risks. Work strains, unemployment and sickness are the decisive risk factors. After the closure of early retirement, these risk factors exert a stronger influence on retirement transitions than before, when workers exposed to varying levels of strain at workwith and without health issues, and both employed and unemployed workers alike, could retire into early retirement programmes. The author examines which demands labour market and welfare policy needs to meet in order to alleviate social risks at the retirement transition-without reducing statutory retirement age again. He pleads for a trias of prevention, rehabilitation and social security.