Denmark’s pensions lobby has come out with new research showing the proportion of the Nordic country’s population funding their own early retirement has remained stable over the past two years – which it says shows fears have been exaggerated.
Insurance & Pension Denmark (IPD) published data today showing that while the number of people between the age of 60 and 66 using their own pension savings to leave the labour force early had increased to around 11,000 by early 2022 from some 6,000 in January 2020, it had remained broadly stable from 2022 to June 2024.
Jan Hansen, pensions director at IPD, said: “The concerns that more and more people will become self-retired have proven to be unfounded.”
He said “self-retirees” constituted just 2% of all people aged 60-66, and this had remained stable for the past two years.
“The primary reason why the number of self-retirees increased up until 2022 is the increase in the state pension age taking place at the same time from 65 to 67,” he said.
The association used the figures to argue against the critics of aspects of the current pension system, who have said Denmark’s well-developed pension system – in combination with a rising state pension age – are encouraging people to use their high level of savings to withdraw from the labour market early.
The increase in the state pension age meant an extension of the period during which a person could be self-retired, IPD said, but added that from 2022 until now, with the state pension age at 67, there had been no further increase.
“Overall, the discussion about self-retirement has been blown out of proportion,” Hansen said.
“In recent years, we have experienced a large rise in Danes choosing to work longer than the official retirement age,” he said, adding that often this was even among Danes with significant pension savings.
Another set of figures was published by IPD today to back this up, showing a total of 75,811 people to be employed after the state pension age in June 2024 compared to 58,390 people in July 2022.
Hansen said there were six times more people working after state pension age in Denmark than there were self-retirees under state pension age.
In 2023, CBS academic Henrik Ramlau-Hansen asserted that early retirement on the basis of excessive pension assets was a real problem in Denmark.
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