October 2026
07Oct

UK. Retirement expectation gap widens to record 5.3 years

The gap between when people want to retire and when they expect to retire has widened to a record 5.3 years, analysis from the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement has revealed. The Retirement Voice research, based on the views of 6,000 people across the UK, found that UK adults were hoping to retire at 62 but expecting to work until almost 68. Over a quarter (26 per cent) were struggling on their current income, while 63 per cent...

October 7, 2026
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07Oct

Is “staying up late” linked to disability? What a 12-year Finnish study revealed about evening-type people

People who naturally stay awake late at night may face a higher risk of receiving a disability pension before reaching retirement age, a new study suggests. Researchers found that evening-type people had about a 70% higher risk than morning types. However, the finding does not mean that being a night owl directly causes disability. What did the study on night people find? Researchers in Finland followed 5,679 adults for 12 years, using information collected in 2012 and national pension records through...

October 7, 2026
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September 2026
22Sep

Spain. Fedea detects advances in the sustainability of pensions but warns of “excessively optimistic” projections

The Foundation for Applied Economic Studies (Fedea) has presented a paper in which it appreciates an improvement in the structural sustainability of the public pension system in Spain after the reforms of 2021 and 2023, focused on strengthening revenues and delaying the effective retirement age. However, the document insists that these conclusions should be taken "with great caution," as they depend on a series of macroeconomic and demographic hypotheses that Fedea itself considers "excessively optimistic." The hypotheses and assumptions labeled as...

September 22, 2026
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August 2026
27Aug

France. Pensions: François Hollande proposes a 63-year age, partial de-indexing, and a degree of capitalization

François Hollande unveils several measures to fundamentally reform the French pension system. The former president proposes a legal retirement age of 63 in 2028, a gradual increase in the contribution period, and a five-year cap on pension increases. In his manifesto , *Uniting: A New World, A New Left *, to be published on September 3, François Hollande argues that the pension reform issue will inevitably resurface after the 2027 presidential election. His first proposal is to set the legal...

August 27, 2026
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27Aug

German workers oppose linking retirement age to life expectancy

More than eight in 10 (83 per cent) German workers oppose the proposal to link the statutory retirement age to life expectancy, according to research from Ver.di. The proposal would see the German retirement age increasing gradually, with 11 per cent of workers in favour of the plans. The trade union surveyed its membership and found that 56 per cent doubted they would be able to continue working at their current level of health until retirement. It also identified concerns about financial...

August 27, 2026
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July 2026
10Jul

The Impact of a Rising State Pension Age Policy on Women’s Well-Being and Health Using Longitudinal Data from the UK

By Louis Compton, Magdalena Walbaum, David R. Sinclair, Gemma Spiers, Barbara Hanratty, Raphael Wittenberg Background: The UK aimed to prolong the working lives of women by introduced a policy raising women’s state pension age (SPA) from 60 to 66. The impact of involuntary prolonged employment on individual’s health and well-being is debated. We explore how the well-being, mental and physical health of the women impacted by the policy has been affected. Methods: We used data from the first 12-waves of the...

July 10, 2026
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June 2026
24Jun

Merz backs plans to raise Germany’s retirement age to 70 in pension changes

Germany will gradually raise its retirement age to about 70 by the early 2090s under recommendations backed by the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, as a means of future-proofing the pension system for an ageing population. Presenting its findings on Tuesday, an expert commission set up to explore reforms to the pension system said retirement age should be linked to rising life expectancy and early retirement should be scrapped. “No citizen needs to worry,” said Merz, as he said the measures would prevent the collapse...

June 24, 2026
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May 2026
25May

Germany. GOVT reportedly mulls change to retirement age

claims it saw a draft proposal by the government to increase the age of retirement by three years Chancellor Merz has proposed that Ukraine become an 'associate' member of the European Union Politicians have been reacting to a report from German tabloid Bild that the government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz is planning to raise the age of retirement from 67 to 70 years old. According to the report, the age will be raised to 68 in the 2040s, 69 in the 2050s, before...

May 25, 2026
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06May

IMANI Analyst: Ghana Pension Funds Can Finance the Energy Sector

As Ghana confronts the long-term challenge of building a stable, reliable, and affordable energy sector, a policy analyst at IMANI Africa is proposing an unconventional source of capital: the billions of cedis quietly accumulating in the country’s Tier 2 and Tier 3 pension funds. John Sitsofe Mensah, Associate for Technology Policy and Innovation at IMANI’s Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (CSTI), argues that Ghana has been sitting on a largely untapped financing opportunity while continuing to court foreign...

May 6, 2026
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06May

Early retirement may be contributing to Gen X’s cognitive decline

While economists sound alarms about Gen Z unemployment, new research points to a quieter crisis: Gen X workers retiring years before 65—and paying a steep cognitive price for it. About 35% of workers who have been unemployed for more than 24 weeks are over the age of 55, according to an April 2025 analysis. Over the last 35 years, the retirement age for men in particular has gotten younger, with about half of retirees saying they made the choice to...

May 6, 2026
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