Facing the Gender Gap in Aging: Italian Women’s Pension in the European Context

Abstract

Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the phenomenon of increasing gender inequalities that happen at old age regarding women's pension. Moving from recent life-course theories and studies, this study analyzes the reasons behind gender-biased pension levels and how their cumulative effects result in (continuous) significant gender gaps. The article presents a European overview of pension gender gap, focusing on family and work-life issues in Italy. This is one of the first critical reviews of the small but growing literature and national data concerning the effect of gender inequalities related to pension gaps in Italy. In the past, research on the balance of welfare provision between State, family, and market has ignored gender, while more recent studies have barely explored how gender roles, changing over time, interact with the shifts in pension policies. Considering the effects of work-life balance policies since the 2000 Lisbon agenda process and its development, the study especially focuses on the Italian case within the European context. The article examines how the choices in work-life balance policies vary between different national contexts and welfare regimes, by highlighting the Italian case. In this country, welfare and social policy regimes remain very unbalanced, showing a lack of awareness of family and women's needs, as in many Southern countries, and Italy is not able to give appropriate answers to these problems and to the question of the growing gender gap. This article finally shows the poignancy of structural and cultural OPEN ACCESSSoc. Sci. 2015, 4 1186 reasons for gender differentiated pension levels in Italy, within the European context, according to patterns of employment, marital, and maternal status between earlier and later generations of women.

Gender Gap in Pension Income: Cross-Country Analysis and Role of Gender Attitudes

“…The most important change has been the privatisation of pension schemes, with personal earnings and contributions playing a larger role, and consequently, a greater threat of reproducing the gender wage gap in retirement incomes (Ebbinghaus and Neugschwender 2011). Privatisation is reflected in the reduction of the importance of the first pillar (aimed at poverty reduction through providing a minimum income) and greater importance of the earnings-related second pillar (aimed at guaranteeing adequate replacement rate) and the third pillar (personal voluntary savings 2 aimed at supporting relatively high replacement rates) (Frericks et al 2007, Zanier andCrespi, 2015). 2 As pointed out by Lannoo et al (2014), the voluntary pension scheme (that contrary to ordinary savings could be subject to a tax rebate) could be an alternative to the pension provided under the second pillar for people with a short employment history (e.g.…”

“…Among other factors that could influence the gender pension gap, we can highlight women's employment pattern: lower participation rates, part-time employment, lower number of years in the labour market (Zanier and Crespi 2015, Ponthieux and Meurs 2015, Bonnet and Geraci, 2009, Burkevica et al 2015. During the last several decades, the employment rate for women has increased substantially in Europe.…”

“…The shift from PAYG to three-pillar pension systems primarily started in EU countries at the end of the 90s and beginning of the 2000s. One of the components of these shifts towards privatisation is the greater importance of the second pillar, related to occupational pensions (Frericks et al 2007, Zanier andCrespi, 2015). As occupational pensions are related to the working income of a person, it could be expected that a tighter link between labour market outcomes and pension income could lead to greater gender inequality after retirement.…”

The Heavy Cost of Care: Systemic Challenges in Norwegian Work Absenteeism

“…A reduced position percent (100% is full-time; less than 100% is part-time) affects the level of employee involvement in decision-making. Women have a weakened position in the labor market and in the work place due to higher rates of part-time work in childbearing/rearing years (Zanier and Crespi 2015). This is modeled endogenously in another part of the model and 'female position percent' is shown as a ghost variable where it links to this model section (dotted circle in Figure 2).…”

“…The pension sector of the model is where part-time work for women is calculated. Pension is largely determined by lifetime-accumulated income, which for women is affected by: the wage difference between male-/female-dominated professions, the male/female wage gap, and part-time work (Zanier and Crespi 2015). Shared cared hours and childcare hours covered by the state are used to dynamically determine part-time work for women over time.…”