Recognising Lifetime Contributions in Pension Entitlements: A New Framework for Childcare, Caregiving and Social Engagement

Contribution-based pension systems are comparatively transparent in rewarding paid employment, but they can underrecognise unpaid activities that sustain families, care systems and future contributors. This article asks how childcare, family caregiving and objectively documented occupational strain can be recognised without weakening earnings-related equivalence or making pension entitlements opaque. It develops a two-account framework in which Account A records the contribution-related insurance pension, while Account B records a separately financed recognition supplement. A Life-Achievement Index (LAI) is specified as a standardised access and targeting instrument based on insurance history, occupational strain, childcare and caregiving. The article evaluates the framework through normative institutional analysis and six stylised biographies. It finds that a separate recognition account improves conceptual clarity and makes the financing of social compensation visible, but it also generates difficult problems of double counting, threshold effects, verification, strategic behaviour and unequal administrative capacity. The framework is therefore best understood as a testable institutional design rather than a calibrated entitlement formula. Its policy value depends on prospective data collection, graduated benefits, appeal rights, independent evaluation and explicit tax financing. Recognition can complement contributory insurance, but it should not be presented as a replacement for earnings-related pension calculation.