Aging Europe: Rising costs threaten EU pensions – DW – 08/15/2024
www.dw.com
Europe's population is aging fast, forcing EU states to spend more on pension benefits. While governments want to raise the retirement age, savers are calling for a more flexible approach.

Europe’s population is aging fast, forcing EU states to spend more on pension benefits. While governments want to raise the retirement age, savers are calling for a more flexible approach.

Europe’s demographic time bomb has been ticking for decades, with societies of European Union countries growing older and people living longer. More than a fifth of the European Union’s population is now aged 65 or older. That figure is expected to reach a third by 2050. The World Health Organization warned last year that 2024 would mark the first time that over-65s would outnumber Europe’s under-15 population.

Despite large increases in immigration over the past two decades, the continent still needs to attract enough workers whose taxes can help cover the growing cost of public pensions. Economists predict that by 2050, there will be less than two workers in Europe for every retiree, compared to three now.

Meanwhile, the annual public pension bill has reached more than 10% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 17 of the EU’s 27 states — all but one of them in Western Europe. In Italy and Greece, pensions cost public finances more than 16% of GDP.

  • @KyrgizionEnglish
    22•27 days ago

    As an elder millennial, most of us are keenly aware that the systems we’ve paid into all our lives will not be there for us when we come of age.

    That’s why I don’t bother saving for retirement. I’ll just off myself if push comes to shove. Beats vegetating in a care facility for over a decade anyway.

    • RubberDuckEnglish
      7•27 days ago

      You have care facilities? The Netherlands also closed most of them in favor of more tailored to the individual home care. It turns out that this is more expensive and labor intensive (a lot of travel time between jobs for specialised care givers), while all the old folks sitting isolated at home waste away in lonelyness.

      Who would have guessed?!

      • @KyrgizionEnglish
        4•26 days ago

        Well, “care” is probably a stretch, it’s more like languishing areas for the nearly departed. Even the expensive ones. There was a local study a while back which showed that the most expensive care homes typically provided the worst quality of care.

    • @[email protected]English
      5•26 days ago

      I just wish I could refuse to pay into the system. The generation I pay for does not deserve it for the shitty world they created and I won’t get any of it back when I’m old.

  • RubberDuckEnglish
    9•27 days ago

    The bullshit about all of this is in the 80s the Dutch system was flush with cash, everything was setup for success, easily Beiing a lble to pay for the wave of pensioners. Then our government decided that there was too much idle cash, cut on the payments into the system by giving employers a lower percentage to pay. The pension fund who UpTo then could only invest safely in government bonds and such where given the freedom to invest in the market and make higher yields. Now 30 years, the 2008 crash and a pandemic later… There is a cash crunch.

    And the people that enjoyed the higher salaries because of the rebates to employers are complaining their pensions are not being indexed because they too got shafted, but some at least they own their houses. The people that retired only on the governments retirement plan are mega screwed.