Retirement from the labour market: current European gender patterns and trends

Antía Domínguez-Rodríguez, Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics (CED), UAB
Pau Miret-Gamundi, Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics (CED), UAB
Pilar Zueras, Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics (CED), UAB

One fundamental issue for the sustainability of European social security system is the actual retirement age, influenced by the statutory retirement age, as well as for the contextual and biographical factors. To describe the present situation we compare 28 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia and United Kingdom. The goal is to describe and analyse the transition to an old-age pension and the characteristics of those who are not entitle to receive this pension. We use as a source of data the specific modules on the transition from work into retirement of the Labour Force Survey carried out in 2006 and in 2012. Our total sample size is of 330.234 in 2006 and 343.220 in 2012. We use event-history analysis as a technique, being age at retirement the dependent variable. Population at risk are those aged 50 and 69 who were working or ever work during the 50-69 age-range, were currently receiving an old age pension or were unemployed from their 50 anniversary to the age of observation. A description through the quartiles draws a typology of countries, from the earliest exit from the labour market for Slovakia (with a median of 56 years for females and 60 for males) to the latest for Iceland, with 68 years both sexes. Otherwise, population is not considered at risk of receiving an old-age pension. Among those we find large differences among countries and between sexes. In Southern Europe we have a gap of around 30 percentage points: for instance, in Italy in 2012 the 7% of males are not in risk, this proportion if of 42% for females. On contrast, Norway shows respectively a 13 and 19%.