More Finns intend to postpone retirement

An increasing number of wage-earners in Finland intend to postpone their retirement, and over half of them would like to work until age 65 at the earliest, showed a study carried out by the Finnish Center for Pensions (ETK).

According to a press release issued by ETK on Monday, the average intended retirement age was 64 years and 7 months in 2018, an increase of nearly two years from the average of 62 years and 8 months found in a similar study in 2008, reported Xinhua.

The study is based on Statistics Finland's Quality of Worklife Surveys conducted between 2008 and 2018. The dataset for each year contains information of around 1,300 people. At the time of interviews, the participants were wage-earners aged between 50 and 62 years old.

Satu Nivalainen, an economist at ETK, said in the press release that the change is significant as it shows that wage-earners have largely accepted the extending of working lives.

ETK said that the results also indicate the success of the 2017 pension reform, which increased the then 63-year-old retirement age by three months each year until it plateaus at 65 years of age in 2025.

In addition, the survey found that the most popular age of retirement is 65 years old, with a third of respondents saying that they intend to retire at that age, while about 20 percent of them intend to retire at age 66, at the earliest.

The study also revealed that highly-educated and upper-level employees intend to defer their retirement, and men want to retire at a later age than women.

"When the old-age retirement age continues to rise, the inequality between wage earners with a good work ability and those lacking it will grow. This may impact pension levels, among other things," Nivalainen explained.