I found an interesting article on pensions in Financial Times. See: France and Britain are in thrall to pensioners. It does show a very interesting statistic, namely that (1) income of pensioners grow much quicker than working population in UK and France, and that (2) French pensioners now have higher incomes than working-age adults (which is insane given working class people have mortgages, children to pay for etc.).
Unfortunately, while it features Netherlands or Sweden, it does not show data for Belgium. See:
Does anyone know what the data would look like for Belgium? Where we would be placed? I am really curious, especially in the light of our deficit and the fact that pensions cost us an estimated €68 billion in absolute terms in 2025.
To put that into perspective, Denmark spends on pensions 9% of GDP, Netherlands 9.6% of GDP and Belgium an astionishing 13.6%, meaning had we spent on pensions as much as Netherlands, our deficit would be today well below 3%.
Thanks, as I am really curious to understand where Belgium lands in this comparison.
by absurdherowaw
2 comments
The Dutch pension system works different from the Belgian system.
In NL the employees have much bigger pension funds as part of the salary package than in Belgium. That compensates the lower government pensions. (At least for people in a middle class job. Low earners have low pensions in NL but they receive then other social protection such as social housing)
Good thing we have high inheritance tax to let some of that money flow back to the people.
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