10% collects early partial pension in 18 months

About 10 percent pensioners collected 25% to 50 percent of their accrued pension money since 2017 after the new system allowed Finnish employees past the age of 61 to start collecting partial pension before retirement, national broadcaster Yle reported.

The early pension was taken under the 'partial old-age pension' law.

The law allows 61 year-olds to draw a quarter or half of their accrued pension for several years before they officially retire.

The early pension option, however, reduces the monthly pension by 4.8 percent or 24 euros annually, said the report.

The reform in the pension system took place to encourage people to the working life for long time allowing them to drawing pension money partly before retirement.

Tiina Palotie-Heino, statistics head for the Finnish Centre for Pensions told Yle that on the whole, the new pension option has not been hugely popular.

"Around one out of every ten people who qualify for the new partial old-age pension has taken advantage of the new option. On a yearly level, this makes for about ten thousand early retirees," said the Yle report quoting Palotie-Heino as saying.

According to the Finnish Centre for Pensions, at the end of 2017 a total of 1,485,000 people in Finland were receiving an earnings-related pension, an increase of 28,000 from the year before. This total includes the 75,000 people who began their retirement last year, roughly the same number of people who retired in 2016, said the Yle report.