[Income situation in the transition from work to retirement]

It is the principle aim of this analyses to show the individual ratio between income before and after retirement. For this purpose the ratio between preretirement earnings (earnings in the 12 month up to retirement) und old-age pensions was constructed ("individuelles Rentenniveau"). Informations on earnings and pensions were obtained from a Social Security file with a sample of 13 000 persons. The distribution of women ratio-profiles showed a great variation in levels but concentrated on very low values. The empirical results showed for men in nearly a Gaussion-distribution with a small variance in level but ratio-distribution differs with kind of pensions. The difference in the ratios depend firstly on the number of years for which contributions to the Social Insurance had been paid; secondly it was found out that the ratios were influenced by difference between the last and the average earning position.