Topical issues

The earnings-related pension introduced as part of the 2017 pension reform seems to work as planned – as a special pension for those who have worked in arduous jobs for a long time. A study by the Finnish Centre for Pensions shows that years-of-service pensioners have an average working life of 44 years at the age of 63 and have been exposed to physical stress during their working life.

A new age group, born in 1961, will reach its lowest retirement age as of late 2025. The partial old-age pension can be granted at age 62. Earnings-related pensions will increase by more than 1 per cent. We will get more detailed information about the upcoming pension reform.

The overall length of careers is growing rather slowly. A new study by the Finnish Centre for Pensions reveals that, for most Finns, working careers have lengthened, but for some, they have become even shorter than before.

As retirement ages are rising, concerns have been raised about the feasibility and social fairness of extending the working lives of those who already have long careers of demanding work. This is the theme at the webinar of the Finnish Centre for Pensions on Tuesday 14 January 2025. The webinar is in English.

Raising the retirement age has significantly delayed retirement. This has, among other things, raised the employment rate of 63-year-olds to nearly 60 per cent. Before the 2017 pension reform, only 34 per cent of people over 63 were in work.

Employees’ median monthly earnings were 3,105 euros in 2023, an increase of 4.1 per cent from 2022. Men’s median monthly earnings were over 3,400 euros and women’s over 2,800 euros, according to the Finnish Centre for Pensions’ fresh statistics on wages insured for earnings-related pensions.

The development of working lives seems moderate when examined with a new indicator from the Finnish Centre for Pensions based on the relationship between the expected duration of active working life and life expectancy. The calculation of the labour years ratio was decided in connection with the 2017 pension reform.

The earnings-related pension index will increase pensions by 1.31 per cent at the turn of the year. The wage coefficient will increase by 2.19 per cent. The index adjustments have been exceptionally large in the past two years. We are now returning to a period of moderate increases.

Are you doing research on pensions and retirement? We offer you a chance to present your work at the first ETK Pension Research Forum to a broad and international audience of pension experts, academics, stakeholders and policymakers.

This year, Finland ranked seventh in the international Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index comparison. Finland dropped one notch compared to 2023. In the integrity sub-index, the Finnish pension system continues to outrank the others.