European Commission launches consultation on the future of pensions

The European Commission (EC) has launched a European-wide public consultation on the future of pensions.

The consultation document, a Green paper, highlights some of the key challenges facing pension systems and how the EU can support Member State efforts to deliver adequate and sustainable pensions.

These include “ensuring adequate incomes in retirement; making sure pension systems are sustainable in the long term; achieving the right balance between work and retirement and facilitating a longer active life”.

In the green paper, the EC recognises that “sound and adequate pension systems, enabling individuals to maintain, to a reasonable degree, their living standard after retirement, are crucial for citizens and for social cohesion.”

It also acknowledges the important role the health of citizen’s plays in determining the age of retirement and therefore accessing pension schemes.

The paper goes on to acknowledge that “poor health is one of the drivers of early retirement” and that health policies supporting healthy ageing “can contribute to extending working lives, reduce pressure on pension systems and can improve sustainability.”

Healthy ageing is undeniably crucial not only for reducing the burden on pensions systems but also on the whole of society, as huge differences exists in health status between different Socio-Economic Groups (SEGs).

As highlighted by a report on health inequalities in Europe, people from lower socio-economic groups spend a large amount of their retirement with health problems; while high SEG people are generally healthy and physically fit.

This, in combination with the fact that low SEG people start to work at a younger age, and also die 5-7 years earlier according to WHO Europe estimates, constitutes a quite unfair situation.

While an active and healthy elderly population could delay the retirement age, a stronger focus should also be placed on improving health across the social gradient for the elderly, in particular to level social inequities experienced by lower SEG’s.

More information about the EC’s Green paper on the future of pensions is available here. The report on health inequalities, commissioned by the UK during their presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2006, is available here.

[Photo: Credit © European Union, 2010]