​Finns working longer than targeted as partial pension gains ground

New figures show people in Finland are working until later in life than before, with the effective retirement age having risen to an average of 63.1 years in 2024 – more than a year and a half older than the target set by legislators 20 years ago.

The Finnish Centre for Pensions (ETK), the co-ordinating body of the country’s earnings-related pension system, said the 2024 effective retirement age was up 0.3 years from 2023, calculated on the basis of new recipients of disability pension and old-age pension.

Jari Kannisto, development manager at ETK, said: “We are now more than six months ahead of the goal.”

“Following the 2005 pension reform, the goal for the expected effective retirement age was set at 62.4 years by 2025. The goal was considered ambitious, but it was achieved early on,” he said.

Having stopped rising in the mid-2010s, the main reason the effective retirement age had subsequently increased was the rise of the retirement age for the old-age pension – a measure included in the 2017 pension reform, the organisation said.

ETK said that in recent years, the partial old-age pension had become a popular form of pension in Finland, with some 31,000 people over 60 opting for it in 2024 – most of whom continued to work.

Kannisto said the upward trend in the retirement age was likely to continue.

“The old-age pension retirement age continues to rise and the employment rate of the elderly has remained fairly good,” he said.

But the rise in the retirement age had also slightly increased the number of people whose ability to work had declined as they approached retirement age.

“This is a natural trend, but it is unlikely to increase significantly in the next few years. Overall, disability has continued to decline,” Kannisto said.

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