The problem with pensions
To retire earlier you need to be at least 55 and have 30 years of work under your belt. As a recent study has shown, an average woman in this country retires at the age of 56, while a typical male will probably work until he is just 58. In other EU countries, the average age at which people begin living on their pensions is 60.5 years-old for women and 61 for men.
Much more worrying is that less than just one-third of all Poles between the ages of 55 and 64 are working, despite the fact that the official retirement age in Poland is 60 for women and 65 for men. With life expectancy continually increasing and the birth rate languishing at an all-time low, in 10 to 15 years a small group of professionally active young people will be toiling to support the pensions of the numerically superior older generations. Poland will probably experience this later than other EU states, because the baby-boomers of the early 1980s are now entering the labor market. But still, the problem seems inevitable. Europe's demographic pyramid is beginning to look more and more like a rectangle.
This shift, of course, will have serious consequences for the EU's economy. According to the Lisbon Strategy, the European Union should surpass the United States and take its place as the globe's most competitive economy by 2010. That will be pretty hard, if not impossible, to achieve with so many people in retirement. Reports show that if the EU really wants to catch up with America, then 50 percent of the Union's older inhabitants should be professionally active. It won't be easy to convince those people-especially in welfare states like Germany and France-that the good old days of retirement are over. As for Poland, we can't run away from this dilemma. Even if the aging of western societies provides job opportunities for young Polish specialists, those remaining will still have to work for the ballooning number of pensioners.
Much more worrying is that less than just one-third of all Poles between the ages of 55 and 64 are working, despite the fact that the official retirement age in Poland is 60 for women and 65 for men. With life expectancy continually increasing and the birth rate languishing at an all-time low, in 10 to 15 years a small group of professionally active young people will be toiling to support the pensions of the numerically superior older generations. Poland will probably experience this later than other EU states, because the baby-boomers of the early 1980s are now entering the labor market. But still, the problem seems inevitable. Europe's demographic pyramid is beginning to look more and more like a rectangle.
This shift, of course, will have serious consequences for the EU's economy. According to the Lisbon Strategy, the European Union should surpass the United States and take its place as the globe's most competitive economy by 2010. That will be pretty hard, if not impossible, to achieve with so many people in retirement. Reports show that if the EU really wants to catch up with America, then 50 percent of the Union's older inhabitants should be professionally active. It won't be easy to convince those people-especially in welfare states like Germany and France-that the good old days of retirement are over. As for Poland, we can't run away from this dilemma. Even if the aging of western societies provides job opportunities for young Polish specialists, those remaining will still have to work for the ballooning number of pensioners.
