Research

This study investigates the motherhood penalty on personal net wealth and public pension wealth, focusing on women born between 1937 and 1989. Expanding upon previous research, we (a) contrast the impact of motherhood on public pension wealth and net wealth, (b) adopt a dynamic perspective by modelling wealth accumulation over the life course, and (c) differentiate between mothers of one or multiple children. Our sample includes individuals insured in the German public pension system, excluding civil servants and self-employed. We use the SOEP-RV linkage data, combining the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) with administrative records from the German Pension Insurance (VSKT), and analyze public pension wealth and individual net wealth for 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017. Growth curve models reveal a significant motherhood penalty in net wealth, particularly pronounced in West Germany. For public pension wealth, there is a significant penalty in West Germany, while no significant long-term effect is observed in East Germany.

Widowhood is a key life course transition that exposes women to heightened risks of income loss and economic insecurity in later life. As debates about the sustainability of survivor benefits intensify across Europe, understanding how policy context shapes these economic consequences is increasingly important. This study compares widowhood's economic consequences across two contrasting welfare regimes. German public pensions are strongly earnings-related, with generous public survivor benefits; the Dutch public pension is redistributive and flat-rate, with survivor benefits largely privatized. We expect income loss to be more pronounced in the Netherlands, and expect the two countries to diverge in substitution patterns, Dutch widows relying more on higher personal pensions and private survivor benefits, German widows more on public survivor benefits. Drawing on administrative microdata from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and longitudinal panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we use an event-study design to estimate the effect of widowhood on household income, personal pension income, survivor benefits across pillars, labor income, and social assistance receipt among women of retirement age, and examine how effects vary across the pre-widowhood income distribution. Preliminary findings for Germany show substantial losses in total household income, though equivalized income remains stable across the distribution. Public survivor benefits are the primary substitution mechanism overall; above the median, women additionally draw on second- and third-pillar survivor benefits, while below the median they rely more on additional labor income. This study contributes to research on financial security in widowhood by showing how survivor benefit regulations interact with pension policy to shape widows' economic outcomes, and by documenting how these effects vary across the income distribution in two distinct policy contexts.

Population aging and increasing family diversity raise concerns about women’s financial outcomes in later life, as a greater share do not live with a breadwinning spouse. Women’s financial wellbeing is particularly jeopardized in conservative welfare states that limit women’s options to accrue independent pension entitlements. This study examines women’s work–family life courses and financial autonomy (independent pensions) versus financial security (household income) after age 65 in two conservative welfare states with distinct pension systems: West Germany with a Bismarckian pension system and the Netherlands with a more universalistic pension system. Drawing on SHARELIFE data, we apply multichannel sequence and cluster analysis, and regression methods to link work-family life course typologies to individual pensions and household equivalence income after age 65. Findings show that typical work-family life courses in the two countries strongly resembled each other, characterized by a strong care orientation and weak labour force attachment of married mothers. However, women with care-oriented life courses receive substantially higher individual pensions in the Netherlands, which grant Dutch women higher financial autonomy. In contrast, women’s household income is slightly higher in West Germany, affording a higher financial security but less financial autonomy.

Focusing on the German context, this paper investigates the relationship between employment trajectories and the accumulation of two types of resources over the life course: personal net wealth and public pension wealth. Two developments inform this research. First, shifting employment patterns in Germany, driven by reunification and rising female labor market participation, have transformed individual work trajectories. At the same time, declining public pension replacement rates have increased the importance of private savings and wealth accumulation. We therefore examine how different types of employment biographies relate to the accumulation of public pension wealth and personal net wealth. Focusing on individuals born between 1918 and 1976 in East and West Germany, we analyze data from the German Socio-Economic Panel linked to administrative data from the German Pension Insurance (SOEP-RV). Using a two-step methodology, we first identify typical employment types by performing a sequence and cluster analysis. In subsequent growth curve models, we relate these clusters to the accumulation of the two resources over the life course. Individuals with continuous full-time employment experience a ‘double advantage’, accumulating higher public pension and personal wealth. By contrast, discontinuous employment trajectories are associated with a ‘double disadvantage’. Although female-dominated part-time and homemaker trajectories benefit from childcare credits and intra-household wealth sharing, they still lag behind full-time workers. These findings highlight enduring inequalities in retirement resources in Germany, shaped by historical and gendered employment structures. Our paper makes two main contributions. First, we adopt a dynamic approach to examining both employment and the accumulation of resources throughout the life course. Second, investigating net wealth and pension wealth together provides a more holistic perspective on retirement resources.