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The demographic trend in Germany is dramatic: fewer and fewer people in employment will have to face a growing number of people of retirement age. The labor shortage is already being felt in almost all areas. It is still unclear how pensions are to be financed sustainably with increasing life expectancy. One of the proposed solutions is to extend working life. It is therefore in the interests of all concerned to improve the opportunities for voluntary longer employment.

The willingness to work longer is disproportionately high among professors; the current, economically sensible regulations under civil service and higher education law already make this possible. In practice, however, the way in which this is handled by universities varies greatly, leading to a patchwork in the German higher education landscape.

This interdisciplinary volume examines the relevant aspects of civil service, higher education and European law and comparative law as well as the economic effects of a potential adjustment of the retirement age. With concrete proposals from a legal and economic perspective, the "Augsburg-Freiburg Theses" further develop the current law in a practical way.