A representative survey carried out jointly by Postbank and the Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach revealed something surprising. 61% of Germans are against the abolishment of a legal holiday in order to stabilize the national pension system. Just 26% consider this to be a good proposal. 13% are undecided or did not comment.
Quite surprisingly holidays are more important to men than to women. Thus, 69% of men were against the abolishment of a holiday whereas women said so in 58% of cases. There are regional differences too: 29% of East Germans are in favour of the proposal as compared to 23% in the West of Germany. The clearest no-vote came from Germans in the North where 70% reject the idea of abolishing legal holidays. The opposition is weakest in Thuringia and Saxony where 48% consider the proposal to be worthwhile.
Particular advocators of the idea to abolish a legal holiday in order to stabilize the national pension system are self-employed people: 38% think positively about the proposal which is a much higher number than in any other professional group. For comparison: 24% of civil servants, 23% of employees and 21% of workers welcome the proposal in question.
Another finding of the survey, however, reveals that Germans understand the necessity of a longer working life. If there were not enough financial means in order to keep up their standard of living most Germans would work longer: 68% say that they would then be ready to take up a side job and 36% said that they would work beyond the legal age of retirement. 