Switzerland’s retirement age of 65 for men and 64 for women puts its state pensioners in the youngest half of OECD retirees.
This week, when a Swiss parliamentarian asked in which direction pension reform was heading, he received a written response that said the state pension system could be stabilised from 2030 with a rise in the retirement age to 68 for both men and women, reported the NZZ newspaper. Many nations have already moved in this direction to make pension funding add up as the number of retirees swells.
So how does Switzerland compare to other OECD nations?
Across the OECD, future state retirement ages for men range from 74 (Denmark) to 62 (Colombia, Luxembourg, Slovenia). For women they ranges from 74 (Denmark) to 57 (Colombia).
Both men and women in Denmark are on track to qualify for full state pensions at the age of 74, currently the oldest age in the OECD. Denmark’s future retirement age of 74 is an estimate. For anyone born after 1963, the age is currently 68. However, this age will rise in line with life expectancy and is forecast to reach 74 by 2070.
This means Swiss women are set to collect a full state pension 10 years before their counterparts in Denmark eventually will based on current life expectancy forecasts, and Swiss men will get a 9 year head start on Danish men.
In 2020, life expectancy in Switzerland was 82.4 years for men and 86.0 for women. In Denmark the same figures were 79.5 for men and 83.3 for women. Adjusted for life expectancy a Swiss man could expect 11.9 extra years of state pension and a Swiss woman 12.7 extra years, compared to their Danish counterparts, assuming future improvements in life expectancy are the same in both nations.
The next oldest future retirees are found in Estonia and Italy, two countries heading towards a gender-neutral retirement age of 71. Both countries have linked the retirement age to life expectancy, which means 71 is an estimated future retirement age. These nations are followed by the Netherlands (69), Finland (68), Portugal (68), Australia (67), Belgium (67), Germany (67), Iceland (67), Norway (67), United Kingdom (67) and the United States (67). All of these nations have universal ages for men and women.
Switzerland is one of only six OECD nations with gender-based retirement ages (65 men, 64 women). The others are Israel (67, 62), Hungary (65, 62), Poland (65, 60), Turkey (65, 63) and Colombia (62,57).
More on this:
OECD data (in English)
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