Pension reform in France: Which countries have the lowest and highest retirement ages in Europe?

euronews.com:

The French government unveiled its pension reform on Tuesday, raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne detailed her plans to make the French work for longer, also raising the contribution period required for a full pension to a full 43 years. 

This rule is to kick in by 2027, while the statutory retirement age will go up by six months each year, starting in September, eventually reaching the 64 years mark by the end of the decade.

Sharp criticism of the reform by both the far-right and the far-left bookended protests by the trade unions and concerned citizens, worried that the planned change will be most harshly felt by those underprivileged.

But the retirement age hike is not just a trend in France: the standard mandatory retirement age is set to increase in most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

Which countries have the lowest and highest retirement ages in Europe? What is the number of expected years spent in retirement in Europe? And at what age do Europeans exit the labour market?

We took a glance at the available numbers.

Definitions of the statutory pension age vary across countries. There are different practices in each country depending on pension type, according to the OECD dataset and the Pensions at a Glance report.

The two reports use 2020 figures -- the latest available data analysing current and future retirement ages for those who entered the labour force at age 22.

In some cases, the report does not specify the gender of each country, which means the retirement age for men and women might be the same in those places.

Current retirement ages include two types: early and standard. For men, early retirement ages vary from 59 years in