In France, like in other European countries, the past fifteen years has bee a time of drastic financial market developments due mainly to greater international integration and coordination (in response to European Union directives), financial liberalization (in particular the privatization of public services), and product innovation (especially the rise of retirement accounts — PEP — and life insurance). One of the most striking results has been the quick adjustment of households’ behaviours to this new financial context, especially through the increasing share of stocks in portfolios and the diffusion of retirement accounts. In the middle of the eighties, only some 7 per cent of French households owned stocks compared with around 17 per cent in 2000.1 For life insurance and retirement accounts, the rate of ownership has gone up, over the same period, from around 30 per cent to around 47 per cent of households.

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Stockholding in France

The civil service in Europe has been undergoing profound changes since the 1980s. Two major developments are responsible for these changes: first, the high budget deficits of governments, and second, the demographic changes causing the share of pensioners to increase. These challenges have caused reactions on the part of governments which are rather similar in most European countries: reducing public sector employment is the most important strategy. Another strategy could be to reduce the salaries of public servants; however, this strategy is not easy to follow because there is a danger of state employment losing its attractiveness. A third strategy to deal with these problems is to reduce pension rights, which are still more favourable for employees in the public service than in the private sector. Against the background of these challenges, the paper focuses on a systematic comparison of the old age pension system in three countries: France, Great Britain and Germany. One main aim of the paper will be to elaborate the main structure of the pension schemes in the civil services in these countries, which, indeed, differ a lot, to relate them to the life chances of civil servants in their old age, and to evaluate the effects of pension policy reforms in the public sector in order to solve problems of population ageing. Thus, this contribution tries to investigate the relationship between the institutional level of pay determination and pension regulations and the life chances (incomes, pensions) of people working in the public sector. At the same time it aims at evaluating institutional regulations by looking at the outcomes of these institutions.

http://edoc.vifapol.de/opus/volltexte/2014/5167/pdf/wp_74.pdf

The welfare state of the civil (or public) servants in Europe : a comparison of the pension systems for civil (or public) servants in France, Great Britain, and Germany

The publications about the transition of French corporate governance are controversial fluctuating between proposing the integration of socioeconomic qualities, to the fragmentation of different and persistent systems by the interdependence of their attributes, or the predominance of the qualities of a single network. I demonstrate a distinctive interdisciplinary perspective which emphasizes the strong affiliation of economics and political science with financial markets and workplace relationships in the course of organizational transformation.

https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/4292/1/MPRA_paper_4292.pdf

The Reform of Corporate Governance in France

Les seniors constituent une clientele privilegiee pour le secteur economique du tourisme. Comment ont evolue les pratiques touristiques des retraites ces dernieres annees et quelles nouvelles formes de tourisme proposer a cette population ? Afin d'en evaluer tous les aspects, les rapporteurs mandates par le CNT se sont attaches a mettre en evidence la place des personnes âgees dans la societe, a decrire les tendances recentes caracterisant leur demande, mais aussi a depeindre les strategies actuelles des differents acteurs, prives, publics et associatifs intervenant dans ce domaine. De ces analyses resultent differentes recommandations destinees a mieux prendre en compte les attentes non satisfaites ou a peine emergentes des seniors dans ces domaines.

https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00088303/document

Le tourisme à l'âge de la retraite

In this paper we investigate the urban/rural dimension of poverty in developed countries. We provide original estimates for Italy, we gather published statistics for France and the United States, and we produce novel cross-country estimates from the LIS database. We show that the size of urban poverty depends on where the boundaries of metropolitan districts are drawn and we observe that overlooking geographical differences in the cost of living is a particularly relevant hypothesis. We find that in France and the United States post-war economic growth and urbanisation were accompanied by a substantial reduction of the poverty risk for the rural population, while poverty rates improved less, or even sometimes deteriorated, for the urban population. The lack of a standard definition of urban/rural area precludes a rigorous comparative study. Our results indicate, however, that only in few countries (Denmark, the United Kingdom and the United States) the greatest poverty rates are found in central cities, while in all other developed countries poor persons are still relatively more frequent in rural areas. This pattern is stronger in the four non-developed economies examined here.

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14. Urban poverty in developed countries

http://www.epsilon.insee.fr:80/jspui/bitstream/1/542/1/ip756.pdf

Catherine Rougerie

Papers

Patrimoine des ménages en 2000 : une épargne plus risquée

Revenus et patrimoine des ménages. Edition 2002-2003