Input and Output Legitimacy of Occupational Pension Plans in Six European Countries

Juan J. Fernández; Hayley James; Tobias Wiß; Karen M. Anderson

doi:10.1080/13876988.2025.2599955

Input and Output Legitimacy of Occupational Pension Plans in Six European Countries

Juan J. Fernández
, Hayley James
, Tobias Wiß
, Karen M. Anderson

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Do participants in funded occupational pension plans (OPPs) perceive them as legitimate? This study addresses that question by considering both input legitimacy – participants’ satisfaction with OPPs’ decision-making processes – and output legitimacy – participants’ satisfaction with the benefits and financial returns of OPPs. It draws on an original survey conducted in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Spain in 2023. The analysis indicates moderate satisfaction with input and output legitimacy across all six countries. Moreover, behavioural factors – having gathered information about their OPP or engaged in OPP decision-making processes – are strong predictors of input and output legitimacy.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-33
Number of pages	33
Journal	Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice
Volume	28
Issue number	1
Early online date	21 Jan 2026
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/13876988.2025.2599955
Publication status	Published - 21 Jan 2026

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

Funding

This work was supported by the Norface Network, the Irish Research Council, the Dutch Research Council, the Austrian Science Fund [I 4821-G] and the Spanish State Research Agency [PCI2020-112131].

Keywords

attitudes
comparative policy analysis
financialization
legitimacy
occupational pension plans
pensions

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10.1080/13876988.2025.2599955Licence: CC BY 4.0

Input and Output Legitimacy of Occupational Pension Plans in Six European Countries
Copyright © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Final published version, 1.02 MBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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title = "Input and Output Legitimacy of Occupational Pension Plans in Six European Countries",

abstract = "Do participants in funded occupational pension plans (OPPs) perceive them as legitimate? This study addresses that question by considering both input legitimacy – participants{\textquoteright} satisfaction with OPPs{\textquoteright} decision-making processes – and output legitimacy – participants{\textquoteright} satisfaction with the benefits and financial returns of OPPs. It draws on an original survey conducted in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Spain in 2023. The analysis indicates moderate satisfaction with input and output legitimacy across all six countries. Moreover, behavioural factors – having gathered information about their OPP or engaged in OPP decision-making processes – are strong predictors of input and output legitimacy.",

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Input and Output Legitimacy of Occupational Pension Plans in Six European Countries

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