More than half of employees are 65 years or older at retirement

06/02/2015 15:00

Statistics Netherlands announced today that the average age for employees to go into retirement has risen further to 64.1 years in 2014, i.e. 0.2 years higher than in 2013 and 0.5 years higher than in 2012. In 2014, it was the first time that more than half of people were 65 years or older at the moment they went into retirement. Altogether, the retired population included 3.1 million people in 2014.

Retirement age employees has risen over the past eight years

Until 2007, the average retirement age of employees was 61 years, but has risen annually since 2007. Partly as a result of changes in legislation and the introduction of rules to raise the statutory retirement age, the number of employees going into retirement at a younger age is declining. Since 1 January 2013, the average age of retirement was raised by one month annually. So far, the immediate effects of the step-wise raising of the statutory retirement age have been limited.

Number of retired employees and average age of retirement

More people going into retirement after 65

The proportion of people going into retirement prior to their 60th birthday has fallen from 28 percent in 2006 to 6 percent in 2011, but has remained stable since 2011. In recent years, the proportion of people retiring between 60 and 65 has also fallen significantly: from 70 percent in 2008 to 42 percent in 2014. As a result of this development, 2014 is the first year that more than half of employees were 65 years or older at the moment they went into retirement.

Retirement age employees

Lowest retirement age in sector public administration

The lowest average age of retirement (63.2 years) was recorded in the sector public administration and government services. This is partly due to the fact that the average age of retirement of employees working for the Ministry of Defence is 59 years. People employed in the sector agriculture and fishery and the sector cultural, environmental and other services have the highest average age of retirement. They go into retirement much later than the statutory retirement age for 2014 (65 years and 2 months) requires.
Between 2006 and 2014, the average age of retirement of employees has increased substantially across all sectors.

Average age of retirement employees by sector

Fewer people under the age of 65 going into retirement

In recent years, there has been a tendency among older employees to continue working to a higher age. As a result, the share of people going into retirement between 55 and 65 has fallen noticeably. In 2006, nearly one in five individuals in this age category went into retirement, versus fewer than one in ten in 2014.

Retired population includes 3.1 million people

Although people are older when they go into retirement, the retired population is still growing, because the Dutch population is ageing. Last year, the retired population comprised 3.1 million people. The proportion of pensioners in the entire population has risen from 15.2 percent in 2000 to 18.4 percent in 2014.