Welfare Reform on the Web (June 2009): Pensions - overseas

The politics of occupational pension reform in Britain and the Netherlands: the power of market discipline in liberal and corporatist regimes

P. Bridgen and T. Meyer

West European Politics, vol. 32, 2009, p. 586-610

Occupational pension provision has been important in both the social-democratic Netherlands and liberal UK. In both countries, occupational pensions have been scaled back and responsibility for retirement provision transferred to the individual, leaving citizens at risk of being less well off in retirement. Exposure to the discipline of globalised financial markets, reinforced by national policy actors and international market regulators, made occupational pension schemes vulnerable to retrenchment regardless of whether they were embedded in a liberal or corporatist welfare state.