One indicator of retirement behaviour that abstracts from more general factors affecting the level of participation rates is the average effective age at which older workers withdraw from the labour force – for the sake of brevity, this will be referred to as the effective age of retirement. In most countries, the effective age of retirement is well below the normal for receiving a full old-age pension. Japan and Korea are notable exceptions where the effective age of retirement is close to 70 for men despite a normal retirement age of 60. In other countries, men on average are still in the workforce at age 65 in Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Portugal and Switzerland, but have left work by their 60th birthday in Austria, Belgium, France, Hungary, Luxembourg and the Slovak Republic. Women, in general, retire around one to two years earlier than men.

 

Access the data:

• Average effective age of labour market exit, normal/current age of retirement in 2020, and estimated years in retirement in OECD countries
• Average effective age of labour market exit in 1970-2020 in OECD countries (time series)
  
  

Methodology:

• Download the description of the methodology used for calculating the average effective age of labour market exit
  (pdf, English)