Pensions and the impact on employee mobility
Employee mobility and the knowledge economy: the relationship between geographical mobility and pensions planning
Louise Akers, chair in European law and policy and director of the Centre for the Study of Law and Policy in Europe (CSLPE) at the University of Leeds and Keleigh Groves, research fellow, CSLPE, University of Leeds.
The Lisbon European Council set the European Community the objective of becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge economy in the world. The mobility of ‘knowledge workers' is critical to this objective. Existing research with mobile knowledge workers indicates a close relationship between mobility and financial planning for retirement. Mobility, on the one hand, may reduce the propensity to subscribe to contributory schemes leaving many mobile knowledge workers with inadequate coverage. On the other, concerns about the portability of, and entitlement to, pension provision restricts mobility. Building on previous research, this project seeks to examine this relationship in more detail and expose its implications for individual employees, for employers and for the State.