Countries with higher normal retirement ages tend to have higher employer rates for older workers. As partly the result of changes in pension policies, employment rates of people aged 55‑64 have improved sharply over the last 20 years in most OECD countries, increasing from 47.7% in 2004 to 66.4% in 2024 on average. By comparison, the employment rate among those aged 25 to 54 only increased by 5.7 percentage points since 2004, albeit from higher initial levels. On average, 55‑64 year‑olds at all levels of educational attainment have experienced a marked increase in employment, with those with a medium level of education doing slightly better than those with low or high levels of education.
Pensions at a Glance 2025
OECD and G20 Indicators
Countries with higher normal retirement ages tend to have higher employer rates for older workers (Figure 6.10). Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands and Norway have retirement ages of 67 years for both men and women and also have among the highest employment rates for those age 60 to 64. However, the relation is not straightforward, in particular because the normal retirement age is only a synthetic indicator of age parameters within pension system. For example, among countries having a normal retirement age of 65 years, the employment rate among the 60‑64 varies from 44% in Belgium to 73% in New Zealand.
Except for Colombia and Korea where informality in the labour market is high or the pension system has not yet matured, countries with low normal retirement ages tend to have low employment rates among people aged between 60 and 64 years. This is the case in particular in Austria, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Türkiye where the current normal retirement age (averaged across genders) is at 62.8 years, 60 years, 60 years and 59 years respectively.
Employment rates of people aged between 55 and 64 have improved in almost all OECD countries since 2004, both among the 55‑59 and 60‑64 age groups (Figure 6.11). On average, they have increased by 17.1 percentage points for those aged 55 to 59 and by 21.8 percentage points for those aged 60 to 64, reaching 75.7% and 56.5% in 2024, respectively. By comparison, the employment rate in the 25‑to‑54 age group only increased, on average, from 76.9% in 2004 to 82.6% in 2024. The greatest increase for the 55‑to‑59 age group occurred in Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia, all of which increased by more than 35 percentage points between 2004 and 2024, while the increase was also very large in Belgium, Czechia and Italy. For the 60‑to‑64 age group Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and the Slovak Republic also increased by over 40 percentage points.
On average, 55‑64 year‑olds at all levels of educational attainment have experienced a marked increase in employment between 2004‑23, averaging 13 percentage points for low and high levels of education and by 16 percentage points for those with a medium level of education (Figure 6.12). In terms of changes in employment rates, low-educated older workers have lagged significantly behind their high-educated peers in Austria, Belgium, Portugal and Slovenia, while it is the opposite in Australia, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands.
Definition and measurement
Employment rates are calculated as the ratio of the employed to the total population in the respective age group. Employed people are those (aged 15 or over) who report that they have worked in gainful employment for at least one hour in the previous week or who had a job but were absent from work during the reference week.
Note: Normal retirement age is based on entry at age 20. Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway have employment rates of 68.5, 68.7 and 68.5 respectively and so cannot be separated on the graph.
Source: OECD database Labour Market Statistics by sex and age: employment-population ratio. Normal retirement age data: See Chapter 3.
Percentage‑point difference
Note: Data for India and Indonesia refer to period 2005‑24 and 2005‑19 respectively.
Source: OECD database Labour Market Statistics by sex and age: employment-population ratio.
Change in employment rates, 2004‑23, percentage points
Note: Data for Israel, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Norway are 2005‑23.
Source: OECD.Stats database, Labour Force Survey.