Retirement age in Belgium

30 comments

1. 63 for Belgium? Well, not for long. With the changes, our years at uni don’t count anymore and the age of pension goes to 67. It will be fun, teaching at that age xD

2. We’re sending people into retirement for as long if not more the time they were active. This is simply not sustainable, especially with a sunken budget, crappy growth, inverted age pyramid and a bunch of exceptions and special arrangements. It’s not a question of willing to work after 65, the system right now looks like a Ponzi scheme and no politician wants to take the responsibility of a serious reform.

3. The last time I looked, it doesn’t need to once these boomers die.

   That was before the minimum pension though.

4. It’s already at 67 for people who have to work more than 5 years or so.

5. A lot of people wont get to 67, I do not think my back will be able to handle that. Gues they want a lot of people on sick leave/invalidity. Nursing is still not a “zwaar beroep”. Moest people i know spend their last years in health care at home because of their back, shoulders or knees. Their are other jobs who are not recognised as a “zwaar beroep” who are hard for the body.

6. Who says quality of life doesnt keep up?
   In belgium the average age to retire effectively is around 60 so quite young.

7. Looking at how my parents had to slave away their whole life and see their retirement age being pushed back every few years, I really think we should bring it back to 65

8. IMO it’s more important to have 4 days work/week implemented that lowering age of retirement. Work isn’t that bad when you don’t have to spend your whole life around it and 3 days of rest really changes that.

9. My uncle did not even make it till 67 and he worked hard his entire life… Pancreas cancer is a bitch…

10. Also, the retirement age is purely theoretical. I think lots of people genuinely don’t understand that a huge number of people who reach the age of 55-ish suddenly get fired for one reason or another and can’t get a new job until they reach retirement age. Loyalty to a company or job security all of a sudden no longer matter once people get too old or, put in a different way, too expensive.

    Increasing the retirement age will mostly affect, benefit or disadvantage statutairen and that’s a mandate most companies no longer provide. Most manual labour jobs will fire people once they’re 60 due to no longer being able to keep up, if their body hasn’t already given up on its own. Most administrative jobs are more interested in paying younger people less money for doing the same type of work.

    Age discrimination is a real thing. If our European governments want to actually focus on making people work they’d better focus on ensuring people actually reach retirement age rather than artificially increasing an age most people don’t even reach anyway.

11. Can’t you go on pre pension when your reach 42 years worked? Even when you don’t reach official pension age

12. Isn’t it so that the retirement age needs to go up *because* people live longer and that’s why the books are out of balance?

    If we don’t raise it than the youth will have to foot the bill and we already have a greying population.

    I feel like young people protesting this are only shooting themselves in the foot.

13. PLEASE bro, just one more year bro you gotta believe me I swear it will fix the pensions PLEASE bro just one more year I BEG you bro one more year bro PLEASE the pensions bro.

14. The problem is not the problem.

    It’s not OK to focus only on pensions and pension age. When you look at Belgium in the OECD context we are actually quite low on paid labour hours *overall*. Look at this: [https://i.imgur.com/xkLheRg.png](https://i.imgur.com/xkLheRg.png)

    So we see ourselves as hard workers, which can be true on personal basis (in my case it is), but in fact we are a stupid lazy country. Overall. On average.

    This means our activitygrade is too low, in general and compared to other OECD countries. So it’s not only pensions that we have to focus on, it’s also the different kind of leaves, exceptions, pre-pensions, part-time, that are also must be taken into account. And paying for all those “not working people” weights very heavy on the active working population. It weighs so much that it really hurts. Or mentally (burnout), or physically (back pain), of financially (net pay is too low compared to employers’ cost).

    In this context lowering pension age will put even more stress on the working population.

    So in the end: you can’t have your cake and eat it.

    I have no solution though. I’m a poor redditor.

15. My coworker is I think 62 with a desk job and she just can’t keep up anymore. She’s gotten forgetful, has hearing problems, has trouble understanding new apps etc. Same with my mom before she retired: chronical back and neck issues etc. My father worked his ass off and never got to retirement, he died from a heart attack at 60.
    People above 60 often have some issues that makes it hard for them to keep up.

16. You’re shot around 72, some countries want to push the retirement age to 70. We’re getting ripped off.

17. For 30 years I have been listening to the false prophecy that pensions are doomed, especially from banks that offer private pensions, but, strangely, all the countries keep paying pensions.

    When SVB or any other bank goes broke, the government intervenes with all needed money injection to bail it up. Reason? “protecting the system”.

    But somebody believe that if there is not enough money coming from workers taxes to “balance” the pensions, then the government simply would stop paying pensions…

    Ok, be my guest, when a government would dare to do that, we will see what happens with “the system” and with that government…

18. Henry ford introduced the 8h workday and 40h workweek. But if you put this in perspective untill your 65-67years. Its a lot of hours. And with current pressure more and more are going on health break, burn-out, pain and so on. Hardly any job is really manageable at the same pace or quality. Thats the reason people don’t get accepted anymore after 55.
    If we would be more flexible and choose our own pace and making it socially acceptable. People could be able to work longer because they spread their input throughout the years. I do think slowing down can be more efficient and joyfull in the long run.
    Yes, will the work take some more time? In actual productive/working hours, no. But in total time, yes. At least people falling out because of numerous reasons would decrease again.

19. If only the increase in society’s life expectancy had been paired with increases in productivity somehow. Imagine if we had made some real scientific and technological advancements that allowed us to, overall, work way less to achieve the same amount of production and wealth.

20. > Just because policymakers NEED people to citizens to work longer to keep the books balanced, does not automatically mean they will be ABLE to.

    I’m not even sure the premise to this is true. 50 years ago only 50% of the active population was in the workforce (i.e. stay at home partner) and we were doing fine. Unemployment of young people is crazy high. I can’t believe we need 67 years old people in the workforce to keep books balanced, it can’t be the best solution, unless your plan is to bet on people dying before retirement.

21. My dad did not even reach 60 when he died of stage 4 cancer. He had so much stress in his personal life and work life that I am sure got to him in the end.

    Capitalism was a mistake.

22. It’s a total myth that we will continue to live longer. Life expectancy has dropped for a third year in a row in high-income countries.

23. Statistically we live longer. When the compulsory pension-savings schemes were set up after WWII, men lived on average to 69 -70. Average life span for males has gone up by roughly 10-15 years in most western countries. The probability is that life span will continue to increase. Of course some people have shorter lives, but you must look at the average. Try working out how much money you would need for an income of say € 20,000 if you didn’t have a pension and had to live off the interest on your savings. At current savings book rates it’s a colossal sum.

24. I am shocked that nobody brings this data set up in discussions about equality between women and men.

25. Aah yes, keep working so we can finance the retirement of the current older people, or mostly that of the retired politicians, while they make accounting errors.

    I was talking to my GF yesterday when the situation with the “accounting error” of that retired politician came up. If it were any ordinary civilian, you’ll be freaking crucified if you dare to say you won’t return that extra 1k u got. Heck not only they’ll bring you to court, they’ll add intrests and what not on top of that, making you pay even more at the end for a an error they comitted.

26. Imagine the breakdown of the system once the policy makers start to realize that the current linear extrapolation of life expectancy is totally wrong. Like in so many fields, we will soon enter the territory of exponential growth, mirroring Moore´s law, doubling the life expectancy every x years. We are on the precipice of a growth driven by genetics research, proteomics, advances in molecular biology, AI assisted biology etc. that soon will shock the world. In 20 years, the mere idea of retirement will become untenable, since people will no longer be bound by any kind of predictable expiry date. I would like to see the politicians struggling dealing with that, combined with the growing problems of climate change, for which they also have an excellent record of careful planning and consideration of predictions in the favor of most cautious and pre-emptive action.

27. The problem is that Belgium simply won’t be able to keep paying pensions, even if our pensions are already low. We can keep pretending different, it won’t change.

    What needs to happen is:
    – equal pension for all sectors
    – some sectors have excessively young age limits. This needs to be fixed

    Even with these 2, I’m not sure it’s enough and I think we won’t have any other choice then increasing pension age. You might not like it, but pretending it’s not there doesn’t help ( cfr. Climate change)

    The reality is our current pension age was calculated when people died much sooner, this combined with the absurd benefits for public sector is a very big problem that no one dares to tackle.

28. I’m pretty damned tired of having elderly people as colleagues

    and they want to make it worse?

29. We now pay the price of previous generations living above their means. They spent too much, unsustainable bonuses and pensions that banked purely on the premise of continuous growth and “trickle down”. Additionally, due to advances, people live a years longer, but in addition to adding more years of pension payments, the healthcare also comes at a cost.

    Reality has shown that it’s unsustainable, but they still want theirs. Same with all generations that came after. No one wants to work longer, or get less pension. So the burden is continually being shifted to younger generations.

    They got theirs, but in meantime wealth inequality has grown, housing prices have gone up, wages have not grown as much as the cost of living, climate change has necessitated individual efforts with a cost,…

30. That is why flexibility is needed. You cant expect a 60 year old to work as a builder or in a factory anymore but perhaps they could be reschooled as a teacher for example. The days of doing a life long the same job are over in my eyes.