January 2023

China. Authorities mull measures to address aging population

Moves may include the gradual raising of the national retirement age and changes to the ways senior care is funded. Li Lei reports. As officials wrapped up 12 months of work and planned for the future at closely watched meetings that marked the end of the year, issues involving older people came under the spotlight. Data published by the National Health Commission in October showed that 267 million people, or 18.9 percent of the population, were age 60 and older. That meant...

German Employers’ Associations call on government to act on pension reforms

The Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA) is pressing the government to proceed swiftly towards reforming the country’s pension system this year, knocking down incentives to retire early. BDA president Rainer Dulger said that “2023 must be a year of action. Germany needs real and sustainable reforms. Now is the time to put the necessary reforms into practice, without any mental restrictions”. He also addressed labour market figures published on 3 January. According to the figures published by the federal employment...

December 2022

Turkey’s president abolishes the retirement age by decree

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced the end of the retirement age requirement, which gives over 2 million Turks the possibility of immediately choosing to exercise the right to a pension, according to what was communicated in a press conference yesterday evening. Currently, the retirement age is 58 for women and 60 for men. «With the regulation that we agree with today, about 2.25 million more people will be entitled to retire. No age limit to be entitled to...

Gen Zers Look Forward to Early Retirement

What You Need to Know Results from a study show that members of Generation Z expect to retire early. The study also found that most Gen Zers have had or expect to have a successful career. Despite this, 44% of Gen Z respondents described their mental health as weak or very weak. Members of Generation Z, which includes the youngest adults in the U.S., have significantly improved their financial well-being and expect to retire before they reach 60, way ahead of their older...

Germany. Scholz wants to limit early retirement to weather German labour crisis

While Germany's chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for policies to discourage people from taking early retirement, the FDP is looking to Sweden for inspiration, considering the economic benefits of a more flexible retirement policy and how it may help plug the country’s labour shortage. Scholz calls for cutbacks in early retirements Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz has made an appeal to people over the age of 60, calling on them to delay their retirement. The SPD politician said that pension-age people delaying...

November 2022

Portuguese seniors’ life expectancy decreased again, provisional results show. It determines pension age for 2024

Statistic Portugal published on November 29 the provisional value of life expectancy at age 65 for the three-year period 2020-2022. Every year this estimates has an influence on pensions in Portugal. Life expectancy at age 65 in Portugal is estimated at 19.30 years for the triennium 2020-2022. Different from life expectancy at birth, this means Portuguese at age 65 between 2020 and 2022 could expect to live until 84 years and 110 days on average. It decreased 0.05 year compared...

Malaysia. Concerns over raising the retirement age

THE call for Malaysia to increase the retirement age, due to its ageing population and high number of citizens with insufficient savings, has grown louder as the Covid-19 pandemic has further eroded their savings. There are also suggestions to offer fixed term contracts, incentives for higher contributions towards savings as well as to increase the overall remuneration for employees and improve their financial literacy. Most Malaysians rely on their Employees Provident Fund (EPF) savings to sustain their expenses after retirement. The recent...

41% of U.S. women expect to retire at age 70, older or not at all: survey

Two-fifths (41 per cent) of U.S. women say they expect to retire at age 70 or older or don’t plan to retire at all, according to a survey by the Harris Poll on behalf of the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. Among women who plan to work past age 65 or who don’t plan to retire, 81 per cent cited financial reasons. Nearly half (45 per cent) said they expect to rely on self-funded savings or investments in retirement, while...

October 2022

France’s Macron vows to implement contested pension changes

French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to implement contested pension reforms that would make younger generations work longer. In an interview Wednesday evening on France 2 television, Macron said the changes would start being applied next year. “There’s only one way to do it if we are lucid. Since we are living longer, it’s to work longer,” he said. Read also US. Early retirement took off during the pandemic The minimum retirement age to get full a pension would be gradually increased from 62...

US. Early retirement took off during the pandemic

Even as many Americans have returned to work over the past year, making up for most of the pandemic losses in the labor force, a sizable number of older workers are choosing to remain on the sidelines. In September, the share of people 55 and older who were working or looking for work was down 1.5 percentage points as compared with February 2020, according to the Labor Department. (For comparison, prime-age workers, or those 25 to 54 years old, are...