Retirement in Europe – young people can work until their 70’s

According to a recent study, younger generations in Europe may be working in their seventies due to the possible increase of the retirement ages over the next decade.

The Finnish Centre for Pensions as discovered during its current research programme (which began at the beginning of 2020) that most of the European countries are modifying and redefining the applicable retirement ages based on life expectancy rather than earnings or contributions. Given to the fact that life expectancy has increased steadily, people will require the state’s support for a longer period of time. Hence, EU countries are opting to base retirement ages on life expectancy. This trend can be observed in several Member States like Finland, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal or Slovakia.

The most common retirement age in the EU is 65 years. However, the raise of retirement age from 65 to 67 years is planned in Spain, Germany and France. In the UK and in Ireland, the government plans to rise retirement age to 68 years. In spite of this trend, Denmark’s Prime Minister announced a plan to lower the retirement age for certain people who have worked and paid tax for at least 42 years. Denmark has currently one of the highest retirement ages in Europe fixed in 67 years.

As a consequence, more people now are choosing to work with reduced working hours instead of retiring at all, or to have part-time jobs whilst receiving their pension.