This study investigates whether and when financial hardship during the life course is related to pension income levels in 27 European countries and whether relations between hardship and pension income differ across gender and welfare regimes. Data from the Survey for Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) are used, combining retrospective information on respondents' experienced financial hardship and their current pension income (N = 38,574). We apply two-part regression models with country-fixed effects to estimate the associations of pension income with hardship that starts in one's youth (age < 20), the transition to adulthood (age 20-29), mid-career (age 30-44) and late career (age > 44), as well as with the duration of hardship. The results show that financial hardship during the life course does not always have negative consequences for income in old age. We find positive associations of pension income with financial hardship in youth (among men) and in early adulthood (among women). These results suggest that short spells of financial hardship are often related to crucial life-course transitions that allow subsequent career development and pension accrual. In contrast, financial hardship in late career is negatively associated with pension income, especially among men in Continental and Southern European countries.

ABSTRACT This paper provides a timely evaluation of whether the main COVID-19 lockdown policies – remote work, short-time work and closure of schools and childcare – have an immediate effect on the German population in terms of changes in satisfaction with work and family life. Relying on individual level panel data collected before and during the lockdown, we examine (1) how family satisfaction and work satisfaction of individuals have changed over the lockdown period, and (2) how lockdown-driven changes in the labour market situation (i.e. working remotely and being sent on short-time work) have affected satisfactions. We apply first-difference regressions for mothers, fathers, and persons without children. Our results show a general decrease in family satisfaction. We also find an overall decline in work satisfaction which is most pronounced for mothers and those without children who have to switch to short-time work. In contrast, fathers' well-being is less affected negatively and their family satisfaction even increased after changing to short-time work. We conclude that while the lockdown circumstances generally have a negative effect on the satisfaction with work and family of individuals in Germany, effects differ between childless persons, mothers, and fathers with the latter being least negatively affected.

ABSTRACT In research on pensions and retirement income, it has been frequently reasoned that the economic situation in later life is determined by an interplay of individual and institutional factors. However, previous studies in this field either focus only on individual determinants or on macro-level outcomes using aggregated data. We apply a multilevel approach to examine the impact of institutional factors on the link of individual pension income and previous employment history. The underlying research question is of how national pension systems shape this relationship; whether flexible careers and atypical employment are compensated for or, on the contrary, ‘penalised’ with a low pension income. We combine the life-history data of individuals in 13 European countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARELIFE) with macro-data on national pension systems. While we find little cross-national variation for men, for women the strength of the relationship of employment history and pension income differs between countries and is significantly moderated by factors related to the pension system.