risk of poverty or social exclusion

In most countries, people leave the labour market (and thus stop paying pension contributions) before reaching the statutory retirement age when they start drawing pension benefits. This gap is expected to widen further due to the use of disability or early retirement pathways, depending on early retirement possibilities and the implications of bonuses and penalties. With the current legislation, in most Member States, the statutory retirement ages will rise from 64/65 years today to around 67 years by 2070. At the EU level, the duration of retirement (just above 20 years on average) has fallen slightly, as the age of labour market exit rose faster than life expectancy at retirement and the impact of reforms is not fully felt as yet.
There has been little progress since 2016 to reduce the risk of poverty or social exclusion for older people in the EU, after almost a decade of improvement following the 2008 crisis. In 2021, 16.8 % (15.2 million) of people aged 65 and above were at risk of poverty or social exclusion (AROPE index). With increasing age, the difference in risk of poverty between men and women also increases (in particular for women over 75). Figure 1 shows significant AROPE differences among EU countries, ranging from Luxembourg (9.1 %) to Latvia (44.6 %), and between women and men.