Pensions at a Glance 2025

Executive summary

This edition of Pensions at a Glance reviews the pension measures legislated in OECD countries between September 2023 and September 2025. It includes a discussion of recent demographic trends and ageing projections and a summary of bonus/penalty pension schemes, of combining work and pension practices and of mandatory retirement ages in OECD countries. The thematic chapter provides an in‑depth analysis of differences in pension levels between men and women. As with past editions, a comprehensive selection of pension policy indicators is included for OECD and G20 countries.

Population ageing

• Population ageing will be fast over the next 25 years. On average across the OECD, the number of people aged 65+ per 100 people aged 20‑64 is projected to increase from 33 in 2025 to 52 in 2050 while it was 22 in 2000. The projected increase is particularly strong in Korea, by almost 50 points, and in Greece, Italy, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Spain by more than 25 points.

• Fertility rates continue to decline in many countries, while past population projections have systematically overestimated the evolution of the total fertility rate. The COVID‑19 pandemic has not affected the long-term projections of life expectancy at age 65.

Main recent pension policy measures in OECD countries over the last two years

• Czechia and Slovenia have raised the statutory retirement age from 65 to 67, to be reached in 2056 and 2035, respectively. In Slovenia, the retirement age without penalty with 40 years of contributions will also go from 60 to 62. Moreover, the Slovak Republic has linked early-retirement conditions to life expectancy.

• The average normal retirement age among OECD countries will increase from 64.7 and 63.9 years for men and women retiring in 2024 to 66.4 and 65.9 years, respectively, when starting the career in 2024. The normal retirement age will increase in more than half of OECD countries based on current legislation. Future normal retirement ages range from 62 in Colombia (for men, 57 for women), Luxembourg and Slovenia to 70 years or more in Denmark, Estonia, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden.

• Chile undertook a systemic reform strengthening its pension system, improving earnings-related pensions as well as pension protection for low earners. Mexico has introduced a large earnings-related top-up to the mandatory scheme, changing the nature of its earnings-related pensions. It guarantees that old-age pensioners receive 100% of their last monthly salaries, up to the average monthly salary of social security participants and even after only 20 years of contributions. Both countries have taken measures to boost women’s pensions.

• Chile increased targeted benefits significantly. Korea expanded childcare credits for parents, which will significantly raise their pensions.

• Slovenia legislated a comprehensive pension reform, which will improve both the financial sustainability and the equity of the system. Beyond the increase in the retirement age, the reference wage period for the calculation of benefits has been extended from the best 24 to the best 35 years, benefit accrual rates have been increased and the indexation of pensions in payment lowered.

• To improve pension financial sustainability, Ireland and Korea have raised mandatory contribution rates, Japan has increased its contribution ceiling and Czechia has reduced future benefit levels.

• Ireland has introduced automatic enrolment in occupational pensions, while Lithuania abolished it.

• On average across OECD countries, full-career average‑wage workers entering the labour market now will receive a net pension at 63% of net wages. Future net replacement rates are below 40% in Estonia, Ireland, Korea and Lithuania. The future net replacement rate of full-career workers at half the average wage is higher at 76% on average.

Pension gap between men and women

• Women receive monthly pensions that are about one‑quarter lower than men’s on average across OECD countries, ranging from less than 10% lower in Czechia, Estonia, Iceland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia to more than 35% lower in Austria, Mexico, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, and reaching 47% lower in Japan.

• The large average gender pension gap (GPG) across OECD countries has declined from 28% in 2007 to 23% in 2024, and this downtrend is projected to continue.

• The GPG is the key indicator of average gender differences in pension levels. However, it does not measure differences in living standards between older men and women because living standards account for other sources of income, household compositions and income sharing within households. There is actually no correlation across countries between the GPG and the gender gap in the average household disposable income of the 66+.

• Gender differences in lifetime earnings are the main driver of the GPG. Gender differences in employment, hours worked and hourly wages make a similar contribution to the gender gap in lifetime earnings (about one‑third each), which averages 35% across OECD countries.

• Women will still be able to retire without penalty at lower age than men in Colombia, Costa Rica, Hungary, Israel, Poland and Türkiye, which negatively affects their pension levels. Countries wanting to promote gender equality in the labour market and reduce the GPG should eliminate earlier access to pensions for women.

• Mothers can retire between four months and four years earlier than childless women in Czechia, France, Italy, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia. Care‑related pension credits are an effective instrument to cushion the impact of relatively short employment breaks, especially at low-income levels. Mandatory pensions cushion about half of the effects of a five‑year child-related employment break on pensions for mothers with two children on average across OECD countries. Nine countries give credits just for having had children or provide pension bonuses to parents, irrespective of whether a career break occurred.

• Protecting survivors’ standards of living following the partner’s death is an important policy objective. Survivor pensions reduce the gender pension gap in mandatory earnings-related schemes by about one‑third on average, as women account for 88% of recipients on average.

• The most efficient measures to reduce the GPG over the long term should tackle gender differences in employment, hours worked and wages. The unequal share of unpaid care between men and women as well as persistent disparities in education and labour market pathways have large implications.

• Reducing income inequality in old age is often part of the objectives of pension systems. Policy instruments that reduce the impact of labour market inequalities on retirement-income differences tend also to reduce the GPG. The GPG is actually lowered by high levels of first-tier benefits, particularly when means-tested as in Denmark, Iceland and Norway, and by a progressive pension formula, as in Czechia.