Early retirement rate (labour market approach)

The receipt of benefits from the three pillars of the old-age provision system is not taken into account to calculate this indicator. Furthermore, a person who started work again after have taking early retirement is not considered here to be in early retirement. Thus, a “labour market approach” is adopted and not an “old-age provision approach”. The early retirement rate is calculated by dividing the number of persons in early retirement by the number of people who worked at least until the age of 50.

In the period from 2018-2020, the early retirement rate of people one year before ordinary (legal) retirement age was 39% (at age 64) for men and 30,4% (at age 63) for women. These rates are declining when compared with the period from 2006-2009 (47.1% for men aged 64; 43.2% for women aged 63).

Note *: definition of employment

People who are employed, even for only one hour per week, are not considered in the analysis as being in early retirement. They are considered to be in employment (in line with International Labour Office recommendations and EUROSTAT standards).

In the period from 2016–2020, one year before ordinary retirement age self-employed persons were almost three times less likely (15.3%) than employees (39.3%) to have retired early. Differences can also be seen between the economic activities, with higher early retirement rates in "Financial and insurance activities", "Transportation and storage" and "Public administration" and lower rates in "Agriculture and forestry" and "Arts, leisure, private households, others".

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