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Friday, 15 September, 2000, 13:16 GMT 14:16 UK
Should the retirement age change?
![]() It's been called the pensions timebomb. Europeans are having fewer children, which means that within a generation there will be fewer workers, whose pay will be taxed to fund more pensions.
What if people work until they are older, extending the years they pay in and putting off the day they begin to take out?
The average retirement age is around 65 for men and women. The lowest in the European Union is 59 for Italian women; the highest is 67 for Danish men and women. Should the state pension age in Europe be raised?
Europe Today's Mark Reid brought together Ursula Engelen-Kefer, Deputy Chair of the German Trade Union Confederation, the DGB, in Berlin; and Political Science Professor Franco Pavoncello of the John Cabot University in Rome. This debate is now closed. Read a selection of your comments below.
Your reaction
Richard N, UK
Changing the retirement age isn't going to solve Europe's shrinking work force. Immigration will. Europe should put its xenophobic attitude behind and stop straining those hard-working Europeans who deserve to retire.
I think the retirement age should be increased especially for women due to the fact they live longer. However I also believe that people who wish to work longer should be able to. Let the individual decide.
The current retirement age is simply too high. People are burned out in their jobs due to relentless competition for better jobs and better status. When they retire completely wrecked physically and mentally, many of them never knew what life was or what it could have offered.
I think rather than setting a higher age for retirement, we should start to appreciate all the work which is done by elderly volunteers, which would cost society a lot if it had to pay professionals for it. Sonya, Germany
Whatever age State Retirement is set at, law clauses that no employer should forcibly retire its workforce due to age should also be made immediately enforceable, so that if any employee wishes to continue working they can do so without loss of rank.
Mark M. Newdick, USA/UK I'm 22 and can't wait to be finally free, we spend the bulk of our lives trapped by routine, as children by school, as young adults by college/work, surely we deserve to enjoy our final few years in some relative peace and quiet. Take money out of the budget that pays for public art projects like that giant pebble and the millennium dome, then put it into decent pensions.
Europe currently has
very high unemployment,
so letting people
work longer will
make this worse.
On the other hand,
more retired people
will put even more
pressure on tax
resources. Unemployed young persons are more than enough to cover any possible "pensions time-bomb". Perhaps the retirement age should be reduced if it is to change.
I think the retirement age is normally used by employers to kick out old workers who want to go on working. So why not keep the retirement age as it is but make it voluntary?
Morgan O'Conner, USA
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