Une of the arguments justifying raising the legal retirement age is the finding of an increase in life expectancy, which would reduce the ratio between active and inactive. But prolonging the working life of seniors risks having a negative impact on the care of dependent elderly people provided by their relatives.
According to data from the INSEE “Time Use” survey, retired seniors devote on average half an hour more per day than employed seniors to caring for the children and elderly people around them. According to our calculations (applying a net hourly rate to the minimum wage, without counting social security contributions and assuming that one out of two people among the generations concerned is retired), the care for children and the elderly provided by elderly French pensioners from 62 to 66 years corresponds today to an amount of 10.7 billion euros per year.
This sum represents only a very small part of the costs of care for the elderly that, without the precious help of their relatives, the reform could generate. It will indeed be very difficult to keep dependent elderly people at home: the home help sector has long been structurally short of staff, places in retirement homes are rare and expensive. According to the 2021 report from the Social Security Accounts Commission, three out of five dependent elderly people are cared for at home for an average cost per person of 12,000 euros, compared to 35,000 euros in nursing homes. The High Council for the Family, Childhood and Age estimates the informal help provided by the entourage between 11 billion and 18 billion euros in 2017.
Raising the legal retirement age could hamper this intergenerational solidarity and contribute to the widening of the social security deficit. This solidarity also benefits young parents since it is often the grandparents who travel when the grandchildren are sick to look after them, the parents often having only five days a year of leave for sick children.
Risk of labor market imbalances
A second argument is based on the recruitment difficulties of certain companies on the labor market: this lack of labor could be made up for by pushing back the retirement age. But shortage occupations are often the most exposed to hardship factors at work, or are highly specialized. They can hardly be provided by older workers. According to a survey conducted by Pôle emploi in 2022 among 2.4 million establishments and to which one in six establishments responded, the trades most under pressure are roofers, zinc workers, home helpers and housekeepers, pharmacists, boilermakers, metalworkers, locksmiths, vehicle mechanics and electronics. Among the trades that hire the most, there are employees in agriculture, hotels and restaurants and nursing assistants.
You have 52.82% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.