Flexible and New Forms of Employment in Croatia and Their Pension Entitlement Aspects

Abstract

Flexible and new forms of employment are extensively discussed in contemporary legal literature. Examined often are only employment law aspects and the (in)adequacy of labour law protection of persons involved in these mostly precarious and contingent forms of employment. However, this chapter focuses on their social security aspects, namely, on how non-standard forms of employment affect future pension entitlements. The case law of the CJEU raised the issue of social security rights repercussions already two decades ago (Nolte and Megner and Scheffel cases). However, it acknowledged that Member States have a broad margin of discretion in selecting measures to achieve their social policy aims. Hence, in this chapter, the authors investigate in what way shorter and more fragmented careers due to engagement in new and flexible forms of employment could affect pension rights within the Croatian mandatory pension system compared to standard permanent employment. Authors first provide readers with the main features and data on flexible employment forms in the Croatian labour market compared to EU averages, where applicable. Then they categorise non-standard forms of employment according to tax income regime and payment of contributions regime and examine their potential effect on pension entitlements. In the end, the authors discuss and provide legal assessment and explain why marginalised persons in the labour market could remain marginalised in retirement.