European Commission urges extension of working life to stave off crisis

25 February 2011

A member of the European Commission has argued that encouraging employees to continue in work until the statutory retirement age is key to tackling Europe's demographic problems.

Speaking at a conference in Brussels organised by the think tank European Policy Centre (EPC), Ralf Jacob, head of the European Commission’s social and demographic analysis department, said he was optimistic about staving off a pensions crisis. While he declined to predict the contents of the Commission’s White Paper on Pensions, scheduled for publication in September and accompanied by an Impact Assessment Study looking into financial implications for various options, Jacob made three suggestions to combat the stresses of demographic change.

He argued there was a need to emphasise balance between time spent at work and in retirement, as well as an increased effective retirement age and an extension of actual working life by encouraging the ability of employees to work until they reach statutory retirement age. He further talked of possible reforms to flexibility in scheme benefits, such as gradual retirement, and urged a debate on retirement ages for those with lesser employment opportunities. Jacob also announced that next year would see the publication of an Ageing Report, updating findings from 2009 and re-examining the effects of ageing on public expenditure.

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