Overview
Objectives
This project aims to develop a simulation model to assess the impact of migration on future pension rights for a range of typical migrant workers. Its plan is to establish a limited number of life courses, based on current available data about demographic and socioeconomic status of migrant workers. In addition, the regulatory framework for dealing with the pension rights of these workers is being analysed, taking into consideration the interaction between the migrant's home pension system and that of the host country.
Little attention has been paid to how EU enlargement has increased the importance of labour mobility issues, and few studies have tested EU regulations designed to ensure migrant workers do not lose out in relation to public pension provision. Very little is known about migrant workers' entitlement to non-state provision, which is regulated at member state level. This project aims to fill these gaps.
Methods
The project uses Eurostat and OECD data to measure migration. Likely pension incomes are calculated based on comparison of the pension outcomes of the migrant biographies. The operation of current EU policy arrangements is also being assessed. The project team have also begun to compile a database of standard practice on non-state pension mobility.
Findings
The project is still on-going, however using the Eurostat and OECD data, the project has determined the scale of the pension mobility problem posed by migrant labour. It has identified migration from Eastern Europe to the West following EU enlargement as a major new challenge for the EU, given relatively small levels of labour mobility before the mid-1990s.
To test EU regulations in the face of this new challenge, the project has begun the task of establishing exemplar biographies, by nationality and income type. These will be used at a later stage of the project to calculate the pension costs of migration using policy simulation.
Through the use of country experts in a number of exemplar countries, the project has begun to compile a database of standard practice on non-state pension mobility, establishing which regulations, if any, are in place to ensure that non-state pension rights are preserved when citizens leave a country either temporarily or permanently.
Publications & Activities
Free Movement? The Impact of Legislation, Benefit Generosity and Wages on the Pensions of European Migrants
Population, Space and Place – Special Issue (2013). 19 (6) 714-726
Authors: Meyer T, Bridgen P, Andow C,
Fair cuts? The impact of British public service pension reform on workers in the main occupations
Social Policy and Society (2013). 12 (1) 105-122
Authors: Bridgen P, Meyer T,
Business, regulation and welfare politics in liberal capitalism
Policy & Politics (2013). 40 (3) 387-403
Authors: Meyer T, Bridgen P,
Free movement? An investigation into the protection of public-private pension entitlements for mobile workers within the EU
CPC/PGRG Conference 'Innovative perspectives on population mobility: Mobility, immobility and well-being' (2012). (University of St Andrews)
Authors: Andow C, Bridgen P, Meyer T,
Bridgen P, Meyer T, (2011) The Varieties of Pension Governance: Pension Privatization in Europe
Oxford University Press, 265-292.
Keynote address: The financial crisis as emergency - lessons for welfare state research
Annual European Social Policy Analysts Network Israel (ESPAnet) (2011). (Max Stern Academic College of Emek Yezreel, Israel)
Authors: Meyer T,
Ageing societies and their pension burdens
9th Annual ESPAnet conference (2011). (Valencia)
Authors: Meyer T,
Invited paper: Gender and Pension reform. A comparative view
Ageing Globally – Ageing Locally, Centre for Ageing Research and Development in Ireland (CARDI) International Conference (2011). (Dublin)
Authors: Meyer T,
Invited speaker: Elderly and poor? Fair pension policies in Europe
Expert workshop of the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation (2011). (Social Democratic Institute for Political Education, Berlin)
Authors: Meyer T,
Bridgen P, Meyer T, (2011) Converging worlds of welfare? German and British social policy in the 21st Century
Oxford University Press, 180-217.
Towards a social democratic pension system? Assessing the significance of the 2007 and 2008 Pension Acts
Social Policy Association 2010 Conference (2010). (University of Lincoln)
Authors: Bridgen P,
