RETIREMENT
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THE French government’s long-awaited pension reform, which was announced on June 16th, turns out to be at once symbolically bold and yet ultimately disappointing. Under a plan unveiled by Eric Woerth, the labour minister, France intends to raise the legal retirement age progressively from 60 to 62 by 2018.
Reforming France: State of denial | The Economist
Pensions: Out of pocket | The Economist
PENSIONS are another casualty of the recent global economic turmoil. Public-pension schemes are under pressure as output falls and unemployment rises. Private funds in OECD countries, meanwhile, lost $5.4 trillion last year, or 23% of their value.
Retirement: Golden years | The Economist
AS GOVERNMENTS try to tackle huge structural budget deficits, one means of attack is to delay paying state pensions by gently raising the official state-retirement age. Protests are expected in Spain on Tuesday February 23rd against an official plan to lift the retirement age by two years to 67. Official retirement ages have failed to keep pace with rising life expectancy, making pensions increasingly unaffordable. In practice many people in the rich-world OECD countries retire several years early, which lets them enjoy, on average, some 19 years in retirement before death. Spaniards should spare a thought for the previous generation; those who became pensioners in 1970 could expect to survive for less than a decade.OVER a million French protesters took to the streets this week to contest the government’s plans to raise the legal minimum retirement age from 60 to 62. The French spend longer in retirement than almost anybody else.
Retirement: Feet up | The Economist
Ageing populations: Old story | The Economist
AS THE world gets healthier and wealthier, people are living longer. And with fertility rates declining in many rich countries, the number of elderly people as a share of those of working age is projected to rise sharply over the next 40 years, according to the European Commission. The biggest absolute increase in the old-age dependency ratio will be in Japan, which will jump from 35.1% in 2010, already the world’s highest, to 73.8% by 2050. At that point, the number of pensioners in China will be equivalent to 38.8% of its labour force, up from 11.6% in 2010. The European Union, which had 84.6m elderly people last year, will have 148.4m in 2050.Retirement: The burdens of old age | The Economist
IN 1935, when America first introduced state pensions to relieve poverty in old age, the average life expectancy was 62. The official pension age was 65. That meant the cost of the pension system was very modest. These days people live a lot longer. America’s official pension age is now 66, but people on average retire at 64 and can then expect to draw their pension for 16 years. Over the next few decades things will get a lot worse because rich countries’ populations are ageing fast.
ON AVERAGE, additional life expectancy at the age of 65 in the rich countries of the OECD stands at over 20 years for women and close to 17 years for men, an increase of almost five years for women and four years for men since 1970. This is largely because of better health-care systems and healthier lifestyles. The country with the longest life expectancy is Japan, where women and men can expect to go on for another 23.6 and 18.6 years respectively. But later years may come with a diminished quality of life.