An accumulation of gender inequalities in old age? Exploring life course- and gender-sensitive approaches for analysing Gender Pension Gaps

Thesis

Women in Europe receive much less pension income compared to men. Based on the life course perspective and the pertinent gender literature I argue that previous approaches risk concealing complex inequality (re)producing mechanisms that arise over the life course and shape these Gender Pension Gaps (GPG). Particularly, the existing empirical literature on GPGs lacks a multidimensional, gender- and life-course-sensitive analysis by focussing predominantly on the impact of employment. This thesis aims to implement novel methodological approaches to analyse gendered pension income inequalities considering gendered life course complexities and contribute empirically to our understanding of how GPGs unfold.

I apply Sequence analysis, decomposition, and feature selection techniques to assess and quantify the relation between gendered work-family life courses, or specific life course aspects, with gendered pension income inequality. Comparing the analyses across country contexts or pension types reveals how these associations are channelled through different pension designs.

The results reveal that, independently of the pension system and methods applied, the overarching driver of the GPGs is the large amount of unpaid care work that only women performed over their life courses and that is not equivalently rewarded in pension systems compared to other activities. Particularly, typical life courses with strong interdependences between family and work are only experienced by mothers and are highly associated with GPGs. In other words: gendered pension inequality emerges due to an interaction of i) welfare state contexts of the 20th century which incentivised a traditional gendered division of labour and gender inequalities arising therefrom, with ii) pension policies rewarding gendered life courses emerging from it highly unequally nowadays. I conclude that pension policymakers must consider this intertemporal interaction of present pension designs and past welfare state policies for pension reforms if they aim to prevent a severe reproduction of accumulated gender inequalities in old age.

Authors: Rowold, C

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-nrdgbeegq
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: old age inequalities; sequence analysis; life course sociology; welfare state; Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition; pension policy; Ñopo decomposition; Gender Pension Gap; gender inequality; decomposition
• Subjects: Gender; Pensions; Welfare state