Longevity and Employment Biographies. Perspectives of a Common European Old-Age Pension Policy

Abstract

Much has been written on the demographic challenges the social security systems, and particularly the pension systems, are facing; this contribution concentrates on the question on how those responsible for implementing the pension insurance system perceive these challenges in the European context, and in what way – wherever possible – they can react to these challenges. Although the German social insurance institutions intensively collaborate with their partners abroad within the European umbrella organisation “ESIP”, i. e. the European Social Insurance Platform it seems to be difficult – in view of the national “individual paths” – to come to a common understanding. But international cooperation pays off, not least also with a view to the possibility to offer social policy premises in reply to Brussels’ sometimes seemingly “overpowering” economic, commercial and fiscal policy.