July 09, 2026 | News | News

When Do People Actually Retire?

Pension system reforms often aim to extend working life. Such reforms have been implemented throughout Europe, albeit to varying degrees in different countries.

All European countries are implementing reforms aimed at extending the working lives of their populations by increasing the labor force participation of older workers and raising the actual retirement age. © istockphoto.com / Igor Suka

Demographic change is forcing a shift in thinking and requires new policy measures. As recently as the early 1990s, many countries pursued policies that pushed people, especially older workers, out of the regular labour market into retirement or onto substitute benefits. This is no longer an option today. In recent decades, the tide has turned completely. All European countries have implemented reforms aimed at extending the working lives of their populations by increasing labour force participation among older workers and raising the actual retirement age. Different measures have been taken in different countries to this end, such as raising the statutory retirement age, adjusting pension benefits and eligibility requirements, and implementing structural changes to pension systems.

Jan Einhoff, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, has examined the progress various European countries have made in achieving this policy goal. For his article in the journal Demography, he combined two data sources. One is the European Labour Force Survey, a household survey providing data on labour market participation across 27 European countries. The other is the Human Mortality Database, which contains mortality rates by cohort, country and gender. Using this data, the researcher was able to calculate two indicators: 'working life expectancy' measures the remaining number of years a person aged 55 is expected to spend in paid employment; ‘working years lost’ measures the lifetime expected to spend in unemployment, inactivity or retirement.

Working life expectancy (in years) for men and women aged 55 to 64 in 21 European countries. All data points are weighted estimates and adjusted for mortality. Dotted lines indicate projections for partially observed cohorts. Source: European Labor Force Surveys (EU-LFS), Human Mortality Database, authors’ calculations. © MPIDR

Jan Einhoff states that a major challenge for comparative research on the extension of working life is the heterogeneity of late-career trajectories. Today, leaving the labour market must be understood as a process rather than a single event. In the past, people (usually men) typically retired completely at a certain age. Nowadays, this is just one of several exit paths. Older people may work, become unemployed and then return to part-time work while receiving a partial pension, before finally leaving the labour market. This complicates research on extending working life, which all too often relies on static concepts and measurements of labour market exit, as the researcher noted. For his study, Jan Einhoff therefore adopted a life-course perspective, examining employment trajectories over time. In his paper, he calculated the expected working lives of various cohorts of men and women aged 55–64 and 65–74 in 21 European countries. To make the figures comparable, particularly between men and women, he converted the respondents’ weekly working hours into full-time equivalents (known as 'working-time-adjusted working life expectancy'). He found that working life expectancy had increased in almost all European countries. This trend, he noted, is not attributable to short-term fluctuations in the labour market. According to the researcher, the increases are structural and are reflected in successive cohorts. A comparison of working life expectancy and years of lost working life shows that the former is mainly associated with a decrease in the number of years spent in retirement rather than in the lifetime in unemployment or inactivity. Only in Greece, Portugal and Spain has working life expectancy decreased among male birth cohorts. This is due to the economic crisis of the 2010s, which particularly affected these countries.

Despite the general upward trend, there are significant differences between countries. The highest figures are for men in the youngest birth cohorts in Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland. They have experienced an increase in working life expectancy of 7.5 years compared to the oldest cohorts. Some countries in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Southern and Western Europe, have achieved comparatively smaller increases of less than six years for men and less than five years for women. Men in Slovenia and Hungary have experienced the smallest increases. Among the oldest birth cohorts studied (1941/1942) in these countries, working life expectancy increased by only 2.6 years. The oldest cohort of women has seen the smallest increase, of only 0.9 years.

Although gender differences have narrowed over time, they remain significant in most countries, even among the youngest birth cohorts. Women's length of working life has increased in all countries and across all cohorts. For example, women in Germany have gained nearly four years of working life expectancy from the first birth cohort (1935/1936) to the last fully observed cohorts, reflecting the shift from an 'early' to a 'late' exit model. However, when the estimates are adjusted for actual working hours, this increase reduces to approximately three years in full-time equivalents. The extent to which part-time work affects absolute working life expectancy is evident in Switzerland: its absolute working life expectancy is two years lower than the unadjusted figure. Women in Northern Europe have the highest absolute value in terms of working life expectancy adjusted for working hours. It is highest among women in Sweden and Estonia, where it stands at approximately six full-time equivalent years.

The researcher noted that his findings suggest that reforms aimed at extending working life have largely been successful to date. To prevent this trend from stalling among baby boomers and subsequent generations, future policy measures must address potential barriers to a longer working life. These potential barriers include illness, low employability, poor working conditions and age discrimination. Furthermore, policy measures should consider that older women in particular lose many years of working life because they do not participate in paid work or work fewer hours than men.

Original Publication

Einhoff, J. (2026): "Cohorts' Working Life Expectancies and Working Years Lost in 21 European Countries." Demography.
DOI: 10.1215/00703370-12472371

This article was first published in June 2026 in the newsletter Demografische Forschung aus Erster Hand. 

The Newsletter is available in German only.

"Demografische Forschung Aus Erster Hand" is a joint publication of the Max Planck Institute for demographic Research (MPIDR), the Rostocker Zentrum zur Erforschung des Demografischen Wandels (RZ), the Vienna Institute of Demography (VID), the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital and the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB).

Keywords

Expected working life | Europe | Extension of working life | Lost working years