Zašto je 67 godina u jednoj zemlji drugačije od 67 godina u drugoj?
Točnije, zašto podizanje godine umirovljenja na 67 znači protest od 10 tisuća ljudi u Poljskoj, dok ista politika povećanja godine umirovljenja na 67 u Kanadi znači ništa? Određeno gunđanje, ali daleko od velikih protesta i napada na Vladu. U susjednoj Njemačkoj dobna granica je već podignuta na 67 bez puno vike, a Šveđani je planiraju podići na 69 godina.
Povećanje dobne granice je uvijek riskantan posao za Vladu. Sa VOXeu, ekonomisti Saure i Zoabi pišu:
Proposals to curb public expenditures by raising minimum retirement ages typically face stiff political resistance. In France, for example, the plan to raise the retirement age by two years provoked “a national strike […] in which more than a million people took to the streets in the biggest show of popular discontent in years” (New York Times 2011).
Such politically controversial reform plans, however, appear modest in comparison with cross-country differences in the effective average retirement age.
The cross-country variation in effective retirement age is usually attributed to institutional differences that affect individuals’ incentives to retire. In a recent paper, we argue that incentives driven by social-security rules are not the sole explanation for the cross-country variation. Instead, we suggest an alternative explanation for the observed variation; the composition of occupations within an economy matters for its average effective retirement age.