Decommodification

Under decommodification means the decoupling Social Security from the labor market , and to reduce the market depending on the provider of work (self-employed, false self, employees, free of charge, workers and welfare recipients). Decommodification includes, on the one hand, interventions in the labor market that are intended to deprive work of the character of the “commodity” on whose sale the material existence of the employee is based. On the other hand, a high degree of decommodification means that social benefits are largely decoupled from (former) gainful employment, as is achieved, for example, in a pension system with tax-financed basic pensions for all residents.

An elementary characteristic of a decommodified pension plan is that the asset base of a personal pension fund remains untouched if the asset owner becomes insolvent in the course of his career or afterwards .

In Germany, only civil servants and employees enjoy such general insolvency protection. German self-employed only enjoy it if they are a statutory or voluntary member of a professional pension fund or artists' social insurance scheme , or if they save up a contract for a " Rürup pension " or receive benefits from it.

See also

• Commodification
• Welfare state

literature

• Gøsta Esping-Andersen : Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge 1990.