From the Citizen's Wage to Self-Made Pensions?

Abstract

Throughout the western world, change is underway in systems of old age provision. The dynamics associated with this are tricky to grasp, however. Pension systems are subject to marketization yet collectivistic attitudes and public interventions persist. This article argues that the dynamics of change can be elucidated when considering the hybrid architecture of what can be labelled the culture of old age provision, with the latter seen as being shaped by two major moral rationales: the idea of pensions being a citizen's wage and the concept of the self-made pension. Comparing two western pension systems (that of Canada and that of Germany) and drawing on evidence concerning both public and non-public pension schemes, the analysis reveals a reconfiguration in the cultural architecture of these systems. The increasing marketization echoes the concept of self-made pensions but remains accompanied by a recalibration in line with the citizen's wage concept, though this occurs in new and country-specific forms. The result is paradoxical to some extent: while there is a tendency towards more liberal institutional designs, with the two-tier pension system becoming a reality in Germany too, the collectivistic impulse may turn out to be more influential in liberal Canada than in corporatist Germany.