Gender, education, and pension gaps 

SBI contributors 

Imke Herold

Project description

Within the three-pillar German pension system, the German Pension Insurance remains the most important source of old-age income. From a gender comparative perspective, existing literature shows the inequality between men and women regarding income and wealth in general. Wealth includes pension wealth quantified as entitlements within the pension system. Although different compensatory mechanisms have been implemented within the public pension system (e.g., entitlements for child-raising periods, pension splitting after divorce), women on average accumulate fewer pension entitlements in the German Pension Insurance than men and thus receive lower pension payments. However, little is known about the gender-specific distribution of public pension entitlements within couples, which is becoming more relevant with increasing individualization of financial resources in partnerships. The linked data set SHARE-RV provides valuable research data by directly linking the German sample of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to selected administrative data from the German Pension Insurance (RV). It offers exact data from the pension accounts of the SHARE respondents as well as important contextual and household information. 

Status

Completed

Selected publications 

Herold, I. (2025). Differences in Public Pension Entitlements within Couples – Analyses Based on SHARE-RV. Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2024-0038. 

Selected presentations 

Herold, I. (2023). Differences in Public Pension Entitlements within Couples – Analyses based on SHARE-RV. 8th International NEPS Conference (Survey Data Linked to Administrative Data: NEPS-ADIAB & Co.), Bamberg, Germany.