The self-employed who are insured in professional pension schemes have an average monthly income of more than 3100 euros in old age.
(Photo: Imago/Westend61)
Berlin The federal government wants to oblige the self-employed to make appropriate provision for old age. They are no more concerned about not making ends meet in retirement than other employees. This is shown by a study by the German Economic Institute (IW), which is available to the Handelsblatt.
The Cologne researchers used data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Since 2015, this regular household survey has also recorded concerns about retirement provision. In 2020, 21.4 percent of the solo self-employed were very worried that they might not have enough money in old age. For the self-employed with employees, the rate was 20.3 percent.
On the other hand, 22.2 percent of dependent employees are very concerned about their own pensions. Even taking into account that women tend to be more concerned about their retirement security than men, but at 36 percent they only make up a below-average proportion of the self-employed, the results are not significantly different.
SPD, Greens and SPD want to introduce an obligation to make old-age provision with freedom of choice for all self-employed people who cannot expect any benefits from the statutory pension insurance or a professional pension scheme. However, their study did not reveal any special existential needs of the self-employed that could justify such a duty of care on the part of the state, writes IW researcher Ruth Maria Schüler.
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The federal government’s old-age security report, which is published every four years, provides information on the financial situation; the last dates from 2020. According to this, the 1.9 million people aged at least 65 who were last self-employed achieved an average income of 1591 euros net per month.
Four percent of the self-employed depend on basic security in old age
Their retirement income, which also takes into account investment income, rental income or benefits from private life or pension insurance, was higher than that of ex-employees with 1492 euros. Freelancers such as lawyers, architects or doctors who are insured in pension schemes even have retirement income of more than 3100 euros per month. But that’s partly because they continue to work past the age of 65.
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But four percent of the formerly self-employed are also dependent on benefits from basic security in old age. The rate is slightly higher than that of blue-collar and white-collar workers, at three percent. Many self-employed earn too little. The self-employed are represented in the tenth of employees with the lowest earned income with 26 percent, while they make up only eleven percent of all employees.
More: FDP Vice Johannes Vogel: We treat the self-employed like “second-class workers”