2023-12-13 12:25:59
By increasing the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 years, France has returned to the average of OECD countries (64.1 years), underlines the Pensions overview published Wednesday December 13 by the organization bringing together market economy countries.
“The 2000 generation, which is now entering the job market, will retire at 65”, develops Hervé Boulhol, pensions specialist at the OECD. The actual average retirement age in the OECD will then be 66 years and four months. “An average is pushed upwards by countries linking starting age and earningslife expectancy, he tempers. However, this assumes that the legislation is applied and that these gains in life expectancy – four more years over the next forty years – are confirmed. »
In addition to the fact that gains in life expectancy seem to have flattened in recent years, the Danish choice to transfer all of the gains in life expectancy to the increase in time spent at work is, for example, contested. “There is debate as to whether this will be socially and politically tenable”notes Hervé Boulhol for whom age measurements are not necessarily the only levers to ensure the balance of a retirement plan in the face of demographic aging. “We can also act on the fertility rate”he notes.
Harshness of work for seniors
In the table of developed countries, France appears as a student who knew how to carry out a reform which “improves financial balance in the medium term” of his diet, despite “a deficit (which) persists in the long term”, notes the OECD, taking up the projections of the Pension Orientation Council. Enough to provide the necessary room for maneuver to increase pensions, even beyond just compensating for inflation: the 2023 reform thus had the effect of“significantly improve small pensions” with a spectacular increase of 13.4% in the minimum contribution.
Certainly, the government promise of a minimum pension at 85% of the net minimum wage is only partially respected, the increase being only 80% according to OECD projections. “But this does not include supplementary pensions”, recognizes Hervé Boulhol. The discussions opened by the social partners, at the request of the government, about small pensions could make it possible to reach 85%.
But if the OECD emphasizes that the pension reform has enabled a financial rebalancing of the French system, it also questions, in a context of a higher employment rate of seniors, on the consequences of an extension of working hours for those who carry out a dangerous or difficult profession.
The OECD’s interest in C2P
In recent years, many OECD countries have tended to tighten access to special regimes “due to significant targeting issues”. But, even with the abolition of its special regimes, France still appears in an ambivalent position with a system “fragmented”source d’” inequality “. The OECD thus gives the example of nursing assistants who can leave five years before the legal age when they are in the public hospital service, but only two years before in the private sector.
For the international organization, the issue should not be addressed only through pensions. “The priority is to improve working conditions”she notes. “In the world of work, arduousness must have compensations”explains Hervé Boulhol, recalling the example of servers in France: “Even with an unemployment rate of 7%, recruitment tensions remain: this shows the need for compensation in terms of working conditions. »
The OECD especially emphasizes the need to “requalification strategies” in front “facilitate professional transitions early enough” with “age management policies” doing “evolve workers towards different missions”. She thus looks with interest at the French system of the personal prevention account (C2P), while noting its weaknesses: a cost “difficult to bear, especially for small businesses” and an under-declaration of employees exposed to arduousness (less than a third according to the Court of Auditors). The system has, however, been renovated by the pension reform, “and it is still too early to assess the consequences”recognizes Hervé Boulhol.
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Employment of seniors in France is improving
The employment rate for 60-64 year olds stands at 36% in France, compared to 54% for the OECD average. Countries like Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden have rates above 63%.
At the start of the 2000s, the employment rate for 60-64 year olds stood at 12%. It has therefore tripled in twenty years, “thanks in particular to past pension reforms”notes the OECD.
Furthermore, French seniors appear rather favored with an average income of those over 66 equal to that of the population, compared to 88% on average in the OECD, and a poverty rate of 4% (compared to 14% on average in the OECD).
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