Patterns of pension financialization in four European welfare states

Abstract

This paper explores the financialization of pensions in four European welfare states: the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. In these welfare states, financial markets and financial actors have become increasingly important for pension provisions. Pension financialization is a variegated phenomenon, involving changes in funding mechanism, plan design, financial management and the centrality of funded pension schemes in the political economy. Nationally-specific configurations of these dimensions have created distinct patterns of pension financialization in the four cases. I argue that each pattern is the outcome of specific sticking points for policy reform that have emerged out of the institutional context of the national pension system. Locating these institutional sticking points helps identify common mechanisms of pension financialization across cases that are characterized by empirical variegation.