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It’s very interesting to look at how different societies are responding to the changing age of their populations. Some societies, with a rapidly growing young population, are responding to the challenge of providing futures for younger people by introducing lower retirement ages. In other societies, where they have got fewer younger people coming through, they’re responding to the challenge of an ageing population with delays in retirement age. Even those societies with lots of young people are starting to move towards longer retirement ages. The overall trend across high-income developed Western countries, is to extend the retirement age significantly. If I give you some examples, you will see that in the UK and in the USA, in Germany and in Japan, those ages are continuing to extend.
What does retirement age mean in different societies?
I would suggest, there are 3 kinds of retirement age.
There is the age at which you’re eligible for a state pension. That is a matter of law and tax or benefit policy.
Then there is the age within particular professions, when retirement is either required or expected. So traditionally, professions like the police, teachers, nurses and doctors, and the armed forces have worked on the model that you do 25 or 30 years of service, and then you’re eligible for a pension. At that point, they’re expecting that a very large proportion of the workforce at that age will move on.
Finally, there’s what you might call the social retirement age. This is the age at which there is the expectation by employers and by employees, that they will stop permanent salaried employment. This is a much more difficult retirement age to assess, and again, it does vary enormously by sector and profession.
A lot of professional services firms used to implement a policy that partners were forced to retire in the mid-fifties, although that’s probably no longer legal, their internal structures, and the way they reward and motivate partners often still create a natural transition where partners do retire between 55 years and 65 years of age.
However, more generally across the piece, there is a culture where people who are doing manual and physical labour often find the activity so gruelling that by the time they reach their fifties, or perhaps a little bit older they no longer want, and their body no longer supports, the level of physical activity that’s expected of them, and at that point, they often leave the industry through sickness or ill health.
The final area is within professional people working either in local governments or in the national government, in charities or in business, where, as they get older, the whole culture of the business assumes that they will leave. Indeed, typically there will be no further promotion available to them beyond 55. You see a set of people who are in a career cul-de-sac who are just waiting to leave. This can be particularly pernicious within schools where the structure of reward within schools tends to make older, more experienced, often more valuable teachers, increasingly expensive and ultimately unaffordable. As they get to their higher grades and are doing less pupil-facing work they will tend to get reorganised out of a job.
So, trends in retirement age are often subtle, complicated, and intangible.
State Retirement Age
The state retirement age, the point at which you get a state pension, is at least well defined, and this chart of some of the state retirement ages across a sample of countries, will give you some of the indications of where things are going. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_age for full list)
|
Country |
Men |
Women |
Year |
Notes |
|
55 |
2014 |
|||
|
58 |
2022 |
Maximum retirement age limit of 65 years from 2043. |
||
|
59 |
2013 |
|||
|
60 |
50–55 |
2011 |
The retirement age in China currently is 60 for men and 55 for female civil servants and 50 for female workers.[23] |
|
|
60 |
55 |
2018 |
||
|
60 |
2013 |
|||
|
60 |
2015 |
The early retirement age for public employees is 55 years, but will be reduced to 50 years (in 2016). |
||
|
60 |
55 |
1999 |
||
|
60 |
2012 |
|||
|
60 |
2018 |
|||
|
60 |
1990 |
|||
|
60 |
2014 |
|||
|
60 |
2016 |
|||
|
60 |
2015 |
|||
|
60 |
58 |
2014 |
65 for both genders by 2048. |
|
|
60 |
2021 |
|||
|
60 |
2009 |
Progressive to 70 in age and 15 working years |
||
|
60 |
55 |
2011 |
||
|
60 |
55 |
2015 |
||
|
60.5 |
55.67 |
2022 |
62 for males by 2028 and 60 for females by 2035 |
|
|
61.5 |
56.5 |
2021 |
From 2019 the retirement age for men (women) would gradually increase from 60 (55) to 65 (60) years by 2028 |
|
|
62 |
60 |
2017 |
In Azerbaijan the retirement age is to be increased gradually to 65 years by 2021 (for men) and by 2027 (for women)[10] |
|
|
62 |
57 |
2011 |
||
|
62.5 |
57.5 |
2021 |
By 2022, the age will be 63 for men and 58 for women.[11] |
|
|
62.833 |
58–62 |
2015 |
The retirement age depends on year of birth: a person born in year 1995 must be at least 70 years old. |
|
|
63 |
2021 |
Increased to 65 years by 2027. |
||
|
63 |
58 |
2015 |
From 2017 the retirement age for women is to be increased gradually and reach 63 years in 2027 |
|
|
63 |
58 |
2011 |
||
|
63 |
60 |
2022 |
Retirement age for women is increasing reaches 63 years in 2028 |
|
|
63 |
2014 |
|||
|
63 |
2022 |
|||
|
63 |
58 |
2011 |
||
|
64 |
2021 |
After 2026, it will be linked to the average life expectancy |
||
|
64 |
62 |
2022 |
Age is expected to increase gradually to 65 years of age by 2025. |
|
|
64 |
2021 |
The age will be 65 by 2025. |
||
|
64 |
62 |
2011 |
||
|
64.083 |
61.167 |
2018 |
In Bulgaria the retirement age is to be increased gradually and reach 65 years by 2029 for men and by 2037 for women. |
|
|
64.167 |
63.333 |
2021 |
In Lithuania, the retirement age will be raised to 65 by 2026. |
|
|
65 |
61 |
2020 |
||
|
65 |
60 |
2015 |
In Austria the retirement age for women is to be equalized to the retirement age for men (65) by 2033.[8] |
|
|
65 |
2019 |
The legal retirement age (the age at which one can retire, regardless of career length) in Belgium is 65 in 2019. in 2025 it will be 66 and in 2030 it will be 67, both for women and men. |
||
|
65 |
62 |
2019 |
Certain individuals, such as rural workers, teachers and police officers, have a lower minimum age. |
|
|
65 |
One may receive a reduced pension as early as the month following the 60th birthday. |
|||
|
65 |
60 |
|||
|
65 |
62.75 |
2021 |
By 2030 there will be an equal age for women and men set at 65. |
|
|
65 |
2021 |
The age was 63 in 2018, but was raised to 65 by 2022. |
||
|
65 |
60 |
2017 |
||
|
65 |
2011 |
|||
|
65 |
2015 |
Retirement age is expected to be increased in the coming years. |
||
|
65 |
2021 |
|||
|
65 |
2019 |
|||
|
65 |
2013 |
The age is 60 if in hazardous or unhealthy occupations. |
||
|
65 |
60 |
2016 |
||
|
65 |
61.75 |
2019 |
The age for women will reach 63 by 2030. |
|
|
65 |
60 |
2011 |
||
|
65 |
2021 |
|||
|
65 |
2021 |
|||
|
65 |
64 |
2021 |
||
|
65 |
2010 |
Raised from 60 to 65 in 2010 |
||
|
65.75 |
2021 |
In Germany the retirement age is to be increased gradually and reach 67 years by 2029.
|
||
|
66 |
2021 |
Will reach 68 years by 2028.[8] |
||
|
66 |
64 |
2022 |
||
|
66 |
2021 |
The age will be 67 by 2027.
|
||
|
66 |
2015 |
Will reach 68 years by 2028. |
||
|
66 |
2019 |
67 by 2028 and 68 by 2037.
|
||
|
66.5 |
2021 |
In Australia the retirement age is being increased gradually to 67 years by July 2023. |
||
|
66.5 |
2021 |
In Denmark, the retirement age will be increased gradually to reach 67 years by 2022. From 2030 onwards, it will be increased a maximum of one year every five years depending on increases in average lifespan. |
||
|
66.5 |
2021 |
|||
|
67 |
2021 |
|||
|
67 |
2007 |
|||
|
67 |
62 |
2011 |
||
|
67 |
2021 |
|||
|
67 |
2018 |
|||
|
68 |
2018 |
Although official retirement age is 68, state pension will be received starting at the age of 66 increasing to 67 in 2021. |
||
|
60–65 |
2017 |
|||
|
60–65 |
2014 |
Doctors have a retirement age of 70 years.[39] |
||
|
60–65 |
2015 |
|||
|
62–65 |
2012 |
Employers are now required to offer re-employment to eligible employees who turn 62, up to the age of 65. By 2030, the retirement age will be 65 and the re-employment age 70. |
||
|
62–65 |
2019 |
|||
|
62–66.67 |
2018 |
67 for everyone born in 1960 |
||
|
62–67 |
2018 |
The full retirement age is to be increased gradually from 65 to 67 years by 2023. |
||
|
63.75–68 |
2021 |
|||
How are You going to Respond
The overall trend is for the state retirement age to be delayed but this is not reflected in the attitude of employers towards older workers. With some think tanks suggesting a state retirement age delayed into your 70s, but employers denying opportunities to those in their mid-50s, I believe you need to take radical control of your future working life. Only by actively planning your 2nd Half Career will you enjoy the Freedom and Joy you deserve as you move into older age. Check out http://2ndhalfcareer.com to see more.
Charles McLachlan is the founder of FuturePerfect and on a mission to transform the future of work and business. The Portfolio Executive programme is a new initiative to help executives build a sustainable and impactful second-half-career. Creating an alternative future takes imagination, design, organisation and many other thinking skills. Charles is happy to lend them to you.