Press releases

This year, Finland ranked sixth in the international Global Pension Index comparison. For the tenth time in a row, Finland received the highest index value in the integrity sub-index (reliable and transparent governance).

Every third woman and every second man aged 35 in Finland are childless although Finns dream of having two children. Consortium Director Marika Jalovaara (FLUX, University of Turku) argues that it’s not about employment or income but about impressions and social capital. Online dating may favour the high-educated.

Work that is found meaningful and perceived to be less hectic and not involving too many changes is linked to late retirement. This is evident from a survey conducted by the Finnish Centre for Pensions that examined the perceptions of persons who retired on an old-age pension between 2019 and 2021.

Finnish citizens’ trust in the pension system remains high, according to the Pension Barometer conducted by the Finnish Centre for Pensions. Yet, the confidence has decreased somewhat compared to previous Pension Barometers. Two thirds of the respondents trust the pension system and almost as many think pension assets are managed in a responsible way.

The gradual increase of the retirement age agreed on in the 2017 pension reform has considerably raised the employment rate of those approaching their retirement age. At the same time, unemployment and disability retirement have also clearly increased, as revealed by a new study by the Finnish Centre for Pensions.

The assets of the Finnish earnings-related pension system shrunk in 2022 – investment losses accounted for 14.8 billion euros. Since the dependency ratio is getting increasingly weaker over time as the population ages, improving investment returns is essential. The options include, among others, adjusting the risk level of private sector pension investments by relaxing the related regulations.

The average nominal return of the pension funds included in our comparison was more than eight per cent in the negative in 2022. The real return is even weaker since inflation pushed losses deeper in the red in all countries. The average real return was nearly –15 per cent. However, Finnish earnings-related pension investors performed above average.

The total pension expenditure in 2022 was 35 billion euros. Every third person in Finland who has turned 16 years received a pension.

The number of new disability pensions granted due to musculoskeletal diseases grew by nearly 10 per cent in 2022. A growing share of new pensioners on a disability pension are 60 years or over.

In 2022, Finns retired on an earnings-related pension a couple of months earlier than in 2021. The average effective retirement age was 62.2 years. The dip was due to the large amount of new pensioners on an old-age pension.