What countries have the earliest and latest retirement age?

Establishing a social security system to protect retired workers was one of the most significant gains made by workers in the twentieth century. The Social Security Administration was established in the United States to ensure that retired workers can live with dignity after contributing to the economy throughout their working lives. Each month, millions of workers pay Social Security tax, which is transferred into a fund. Based on the years they work and their income, they become eligible to receive retirement benefits when they retire. Similar systems have been set up in countries worldwide, and the size of one’s benefit often depends on the age at which they retire. For example, in the United States, those who retire at seventy receive a larger check than those they would have received if they exited the workforce at sixty-two, sixty-five, or sixty-seven.

What is the full retirement age in the United States?

In the US, the full retirement age depends on the year one was born. In the 1980s, Congress passed a law that increased the FRA to 67, and that extension was done progressively, with the FRA rising by a few months for those born between 1955 and 1959. The FRA of all workers born after 1960 is 67, and some political leaders in the Republican party have tossed around the idea of increasing it again for younger workers.

What countries have the lowest retirement ages?

In many countries, there are differences in the retirement age based on gender, with women being allowed to exit the workforce before men.

One must consider that just because a country has a low retirement age does not mean that older members of those societies live well. Take the case of Sri Lanka. According to the OECD, women in Sri Lanka can begin receiving retirement benefits at fifty, while men must wait until they are fifty-five. However, as has been reported by the World Bank, the country lacks a robust social security system to protect seniors. The public pension program leaves only half of workers eligible to receive benefits. The lack of protections for older members of Sri Lankan society leads many to continue working informally as they age.

In North Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Uzbekistan, the retirement age for women is fifty-five. For men, they must work five more years to receive their benefits.

In Colombia and Turkmenistan, women can retire at 57, with the age for men also sitting five years higher at 62. Health Affairs has reported that around forty percent of seniors in Colombia live in poverty. Evaluating the living conditions in Turkmenistan is much harder because, as Human Rights Watch has stated, the government does not publish statistics on poverty and has gone so far as to deny that any citizens live in poverty.

Which countries have the highest retirement age?

On the other end of the spectrum, most workers can retire by their late sixties.

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Retirement age in Australia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, and Iceland is set at 67.

These countries have relatively strong social security systems in place to provide payments to retirees, but unfortunately, not all seniors are able to escape poverty. For example, according to OECD data, which defines poverty as fifty percent of the country’s median income, 9.1 percent of seniors in Germany live below the poverty line.