New Risks for Workers: Pensions, Labor Markets, and Gender

This paper considers the changing social institution of employersponsored pensions within the framework of the sociology of risk. Employer-sponsored pensions are elements of a variable and changing occupational welfare system in which the risk and responsibilities for retirement income security have...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annual review of sociology 2004-01, Vol.30 (1), p.453-477
Main Authors: Shuey, Kim M., O'Rand, Angela M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aging
Behavior
Capitalism
Cost control
Defined benefit pension plan
Demographics
Employee pension plans
Employer provided health insurance
Employers
Employment
Evaluation
Fertility
Gender
Health insurance
Ideology
Income
Income Inequality
Investment risk
Investments
Labor contracts
Labor Market
Labor markets
Labor unions
Managed competition
Men
Moral hazard
Older workers
Pension plans
Pensions
Political and Economic Sociology
Privatization
Retirees
Retirement
Risk
Risk assessment
Risk aversion
Securities markets
Sexual Inequality
Sociology
Sociology of work
Sociology of work and sociology of organizations
Working population. Employment. Women's work
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Summary:This paper considers the changing social institution of employersponsored pensions within the framework of the sociology of risk. Employer-sponsored pensions are elements of a variable and changing occupational welfare system in which the risk and responsibilities for retirement income security have shifted from employer to worker through the expanding role of third-party vendors (insurers). Risk processes can be identified at the employer, insurer, family, and individual levels. This system can be conceptualized as a hierarchy of risk that begins at the organizational level with employer sponsorship of alternative pension plans and extends to the allocation of workers across pension jobs, to worker decisions regarding pension participation and investment of funds, and to final pension balances. Embedded in this multi-level risk system are gender differences that further stratify the aging workforce. We discuss the implications of these changes for future research on life course and retirement and recommend that risk preferences be examined within the contexts of the workplace and the household.
ISSN:0360-0572
1545-2115
DOI:10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110534