According to the founder of Nyugdíjguru.hu, the need for an increase will not become a serious problem until after 2035, because then Ratko's descendants (mainly the large cohorts born between 1973 and 1977) will start thinking about retirement, and as a result, the number of retirees will increase in half a decade and could grow by three hundred thousand people, from the current two million to 2.3 million.
The real reason for raising the age limit is always to live longer as an active contributor, not as a pensioner, i.e. to pay contributions for a longer period of time and use pension benefits for a shorter period of time (at least not for a longer period compared to previous generations).
On average in the EU, at the age of 65, the life expectancy for men is 17.3 years, for women 20.9 years. On the other hand, in Hungary, at the age of 65, the life expectancy for men is only 13.2 years, for women 17.3 years. Thus, a Hungarian man retires for an average of 13-14 years, and a Hungarian woman for 20-21 years. Due to the preferential pension for women, the retirement age for women is around 61-62 years. Currently, 73% of men and 87% of women live to be 65 years old.
In the coming decades, the time spent in retirement may continue to increase, as life expectancy in old age is also likely to increase (albeit at a slower pace than in recent decades), so Generation Y and the younger generations Z and Alpha should prepare because they could be retiring for more than a quarter of a century.
The retirement age is planned to be raised in almost all EU member states where it does not reach 65. Currently, the retirement age is lower than 65 for Austrian, Croatian, Polish and Romanian women, as well as for Bulgarian, Czech, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Finnish and Maltese men and women born before 1961.
EU Member States with a current retirement age of 65 or higher typically base their future increase plans on the evolution of life expectancy at age 60 or 65 (13 of the 27 Member States have already introduced this solution, including Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Cyprus, Estonia, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria). This is also what the EU has recommended for Hungary as an important factor in the pension reform implemented in 2025.
The maximum age in Spain will increase from 2027, in Belgium from 2030, in Germany from 2031 to 67 years, in Denmark from 2035 to 69 years, and in Italy from 2050 to 69 years and 9 months. Sweden has a flexible retirement age range, currently you can apply for a pension between the ages of 63 and 69, but the earlier someone applies, the lower their pension will be due to the application of annual pension earnings depending on the expected life expectancy. In the Netherlands, the retirement age will rise to 67 years in 2024, but from 2025 it will be entirely the additional life expectancy at retirement (a 12-month increase in life expectancy entails an 8-month increase in the age limit).
After Hungary increased the upper age limit from 62 to 65 in a cycle of increases since 2010 for all those born after 31 December 1956, which is currently higher than in 11 other EU member states, there is no immediate need to justify raising the minimum age in such a short period of time – writes András Farkas. In the past decade, the retirement age in Hungary has risen faster than life expectancy at the lower age, so there is no need for another increase in the foreseeable future.
