Explaining Europeans' preferences for pension provision

Abstract

This paper analyses which factors are most important for explaining why people in fifteen European countries prefer either public, occupational or private pension provision. We make a distinction between personal characteristics such as age, gender and occupation, nationality and the actual, current kind of pension provision that respondents have. Using a large European survey, we find that although all three types of variables are important, the current pension provision and nation-specific effects have a much stronger effect than personal characteristics.