Verständnis, Haltungen und Verhalten: Altersvorsorge in Deutschland (VHAlt)

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Verständnis und Haltungen zur Altersvorsorge in Deutschland: Ausprägungen und Auswirkungen auf vorsorgebezogenes Verhalten (VHAlt)

(Understanding and Attitudes about Old-age Security in Germany: Manifestation and Consequences for Preventive Behaviour).

2019-2023
Silke Übelmesser, Jana Schütz together with Carmela ApreaExternal link (Chair of Economic and Business Education, University of Mannheim) and other.

For up-to-date information, please see the project’s website https://vhalt.de/External link.

Demographic change has consequences for the sustainability of the public pension system. This presents a challenge for policy-makers, as they have to communicate effectively with the population about these necessary adaptations. At the same time, these changes mean more self-responsibility for the population concerning their old-age security in an environment which is more and more characterized by uncertainty. As a remedy for this complex situation, there is a call for better financial literacy.

Both aspects – communication or information, respectively, and financial literacy – should lead to a corresponding change in the behavior (openness for reforms, engagement with other forms of old-age security). However, this requires knowing if people understand the old-age security system. So far, there are no studies about the importance of (mis)understandings in this context.

The project seeks to contribute to closing this gap. For this, it is based on an innovative and interdisciplinary approach with a focus on possible heterogeneity of different groups. Qualitative and quantitative methods will be combined and complemented with “survey experiments” to allow for causal interpretation of the results.

The following  social-policy related research questions will be addressed for Germany:

(1) Which (mis)understandings and attitudes about old-age security can be observed in Germany?

(2) Do these (mis)understandings and attitudes vary across population groups?

(3) Are there causal relations between (mis)understandings, attitudes and behavior in the context of old-age security?

(4) Which policy conclusions can be drawn? How can they be supported by the development of recommendations about communication?