The Danish system is a cocktail.
The universal public pension is currently 7,198 crowns, or 968 euros in 2025, and the age of the first payment depends on life expectancy. In addition, there are additional capitalization plans, one of which is compulsory and the other optional.
Thanks to his complementary retirement, Kirsten Evans plans to retire around 65 or 66 years old although it is abstract to think so many years in advance, “smiles the energetic Danish.
Few people really work until the legal retirement age in Denmark. The effective age of departure was around 64 in 2022, for a legal age of 67 years, according to the OECD.
“We observe that around 80% of people who retire could have worked longer, but the remaining 20% retire either because they cannot find a job, or because they are sick,” said ethnologist Aske Juul Lassen, lecturer at the University of Copenhagen.
“For these 20%, there is a big difference if retirement age increases again,” notes this specialist in seniors who deplores that “inequalities increase with age”.
The gap may widen between those who will have the means, thanks to their personal finances, to leave earlier and the others, insists Damoun Ashournia, chief economist of the FH union organization.
“Two thirds of our members already retire before the official age but this is due to the fact that they are exhausted and that they do difficult physical work,” he said.
Camilla Rasmussen, member of the union and nurse in a gastroenterology service of a Copenhagen hospital, is convinced that she will not be able to work up to 70 years.
“It would be really difficult for me to continue to take about 10,000 steps every day,” said the 37 -year -old young woman. “If I’m still there at 70, I think it’s not just for patients”.
Review the system
However, the economist of the FH union judges the recovery of the retirement age at 70 years “reasonable” to ensure the financing of the welfare state, pillar of the Danish company.
“While the population ages and life expectancy increases, if we want to offer the same public services as today, we must secure public finances,” he notes.
But we should not continue to increase the age limit as regularly as provided for in the 2006 reform, he adds.
Without a change, in 2070, the retirement age would reach 74 years, which does not scal up employers.
“It would be the most intelligent way to continue to keep the system. Thus, the more we age, the more we have to work a little more,” considers the deputy director of the Danish bosses federation, Erik Simonsen.
However, last summer, the government’s chef, the social democrat puts Frederiksen, 47, said she was ready to review the system, once reached 70 years.
“We no longer believe in the automatic character of the retirement rise,” she said to the Berlingske daily.
Like the recommendations of a group of experts consulted on the subject, the FH union would like to decrease the rate of the increase.
“In the future, we can increase it by only one semester for each year when life expectancy increases,” offers Mr. Ashournia.