The limits of solidarity: old-age public pension claims of mother divorcees

The German statutory pension system is closely linked to employment careers (contribution equivalence logic), while integrating some solidarity-based compensation mechanisms to buffer the resulting first-stage pension inequalities. While gender pension gaps have been widely investigated, little is known about the system's differential effects on women, particularly mothers. This article examines old-age public pension claims (acquired upon retirement entry) of mother divorcees with different employment and earnings trajectories around divorce. Using register data from the German Public Pension Fund (n = 5,028) and running sequence and cluster analysis, we identify six mother clusters. We assess the relationship between self-earned claims and claims from solidarity-driven credited spells (that is, divorce-splitting and childcare) in buffering first-stage pension inequality. Results show these mechanisms are effective, but solidarity is limited: total claims rankings remain dominated by the contribution equivalence logic, emphasizing once more the importance of strong labour market attachment for women's old-age pension wealth.