October 2025

Later retirement expected in 2026 budget as Malaysia tackles economic pressures

Malaysians may be asked to retire five years later at 65 but should be spared any sharp tax rises in Friday’s budget, economists say, as Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim faces an economy hampered by an ageing population, high youth joblessness and surging living costs at the halfway point of his administration. About 8 per cent of Malaysia’s 34 million population are aged 65 and older, according to government data, firmly placing the Southeast Asian nation in the ageing nation category. At the same time,...

Pension Design and General Public Finances: Beyond Baseline Actuarial Neutrality

By Didier Blanchet & Gilbert Cette The design of pension benefits cannot be considered in disconnection from the constraints related to the general public finances. A change in the average retirement age has an impact not only on pension funding, but also on resources available for other public spending. Incorporating this externality implies penalties/bonuses for earlier/later retirement that are much higher than those designed to balance the pension system alone. Source SSRN

Calls to reform Australia’s pension age as labourers consider early retirement due to injury

In Australia, the pension age was lifted from 65 to 67 in 2023. For some manual workers, it's a physical struggle to continue working until 67. "For some, 67 is an achievable and even desirable pension age," said Professor Gary Martin, workplace specialist at the Australian Institute of Management. "For others, the road there is far more demanding." Carpenter and labourer Paul Quealy has some advice for young tradies. A man in a blue short-sleeved shirt, visor and tinted glasses with a dark patch...

September 2025

Commuting Time, Flexibility, and Job Security

By Bert van Landeghem, Thomas Dohmen & Arne Risa Hole We analyse workers’ preferences for wages, commute time, working-from-home, flexibility, job security, and social impact using discrete choice experiments from 2022 and 2025 with about 4,000 Flemish employees. Preferences for shorter commutes and flexible schedules remain stable post-pandemic, with substantial willingness-to-pay (WTP) for these attributes. However, WTP for job security declined and the value of socially impactful jobs disappeared by 2025. Latent class analysis identifies distinct groups differing in their...

65-year-old retirees in France now have higher incomes than working-age adults—meanwhile, American boomers can’t even afford to retire

French retirees officially bring in more income than their working-aged counterparts, as Americans are struggling to find the funds to retire and support their post-employment lifestyle. Due to France’s relatively young retirement age, lofty governmental spending on pensions, and high wage replacement rate, they’re now out-earning citizens with jobs as the country’s officials try and make unpopular changes. While boomers in the U.S. and UK are being forced to go back to work because they can’t afford to retire in...

The Future of Labour: How AI, Technological Disruption and Practice Will Change the Way We Work

By Anthony Larsson & Andreas Hatzigeorgiou The Future of Labour: How AI, Technological Disruption and Practice Will Change the Way We Work is an anthology that offers a forward-looking exploration of how artificial intelligence (AI), digitalisation and technological transformation are reshaping the future of work. Through a series of studies conducted by scientists and industry professionals, this volume takes a deep dive into many of the issues related to new policies, AI and the digital transformation’s anticipated impact on the labour market....

US. Don’t Plan Your Retirement Around Working Longer

You're fast approaching retirement, but don't have enough money to comfortably retire just yet. Instead of stashing more money in your 401(k), what if you just worked longer, delaying retirement until you saved enough? While this may seem like a good idea in theory, in practice it might not work out. We connected with policy experts to understand at what age people are retiring and why working forever won't solve your retirement woes. When Are People Actually Retiring? Most Americans retire before...

August 2025

UK. How to work until retirement when your body has already checked out

Over the years, the state pension age in the UK has changed several times, to coincide with the increase in life expectancy and to ensure fiscal sustainability. The age was 60 for women and 65 for men between 1948 and 2010, after which point the state pension age for both men and women became 65. It has subsequently shifted again, with the current retirement age being 66. This is set to rise once more from 6 May 2026 to 67. As...

US. Working longer to afford retirement is a risky plan, economists say — but some employees are counting on it

As Americans live longer and worry about outlasting their money in retirement, a growing number are counting on one strategy for their future financial security: working longer. Roughly 70% of U.S. workers who haven’t retired yet have considered pushing back their retirement date, according to a recent survey from F&G, an insurance company. Nearly half of the 2,000 adults surveyed said they’re afraid they won’t have enough money to retire. Some people have gone beyond considering the strategy. “Two in 10 workers adjusted their target retirement age...

UK state pension age could rise to 70 amid triple lock concerns

State pension reform has returned to the centre of political discussion as the nation's growing financial burdens have prompted experts to forecast that a rise in the retirement age to 70 could arrive earlier than anticipated. Further demands have been made for Chancellor Rachel Reeves to reassess the triple lock policy. The state pension age currently stands at 66, scheduled to climb to 67 by 2028, with additional rises planned for subsequent decades. Financial advisers and think tanks are advocating...