OECD: Official Versus Effective Retirement Age

The official retirement age is rarely equal to the effective retirement age, the average age the people actually retire. As you can see in this chart the official retirement age can be both higher and lower than the effective retirement age. What is the same for all countries is that the life expectancy was raised and that (assuming an equal or declining birth rate) the work force needs to finance more elderly people. A very reasonable option to do that is by raising the effective retirement age (with the official retirement age).

Japan and Sweden had the highest effective retirement age in 2010, while Austria, France and Belgium (and not Greece) had the lowest effective retirement age.

The Economist

Countries With Biggest Pension Assets As a Percentage of GDP

Not every country has as much pension assets. In the table presented here constructed by Towers Watson the 13 countries with the biggest pension assets in the world are shown. These pension assets are the money that pension funds have for current and future retirees. On average these countries had in 2011 pension assets of 72% of GDP. The Netherlands had relatively the most pension assets: 133% of GDP. France had relatively the least from the 13 countries with the most pension assets in the world: 5% of GDP. The United States has nominally by far the most pension assets in the world: 16 trillion dollar.

For future retirees these assets can ofcourse grow larger given some return if these assets are invested. The next graph shows the allocation of the assets for the 7 countries that had the biggest pension assets in 2011. On average (world) these countries had their assets invested for 41% in equity, 37% in bonds, 20% in other and 2 percent they held in cash. The Anglo-Saxon countries had relatively more invested in equity compared to Japan, Netherlands and Switzerland. The Netherlands and Japan held a relatively high share of the assets in bonds, while Switzerland held a relatively high share in other.

Tower Watson

Percentage of Population Aged 65+ in Developed and Emerging Nations

This great chart from Business Insider pictures the Dependency ratio's, in other words, the percent of the population aged above 65 years in some emerging, Asian and Latin American countries.

Business Insider

Public Sector Pensions in the United States

This graph shows situation of the States' Public Sector Pensions, with thirty-one states below 80 percent funded threshold for a well-funded pension system.

Source: Financial Times