By Amarachi Orie, CNN

(CNN) — Denmark is set to have the highest retirement age in Europe, after lawmakers voted to raise it to 70.

Parliamentarians passed a bill mandating the rise on Thursday, with 81 votes in favor and 21 against.

The new law will apply to people born after December 31, 1970. The current retirement age is 67 on average, but it can go up to 69 for those born on January 1, 1967, or later.

The rise is needed in order to be able to “afford proper welfare for future generations,” employment minister Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen said in a press release Thursday.

Denmark has a population of almost 6 million people, with around 713,000 between the ages of 60 and 69, and around 580,000 aged between 70 and 79, according to the official Statistics Denmark website.

“Developments in recent years clearly show a marked increase in the number of Danes who continue to work until — and beyond — the state pension age,” F&P, the Danish trade association for insurance companies and pension funds, said in a press release Friday.

Approximately 80,000 people over the state pension age are currently in work in Denmark, according to F&P, which put the increase down to good economic conditions, employers being more flexible, better financial incentives and a greater desire to continue working.

“For many Danes, the idea of the state pension age increasing to 70 by 2040 may seem overwhelming,” Jan V. Hansen, the director of pensions at the association, said in the release. “However, the figures clearly demonstrate that a growing number of Danes are remaining in employment for longer periods.”

“The good news is that many Danes not only have the health but also the desire to continue working — even after reaching the state pension age,” he continued.

‘Unreasonably high’

Denmark’s socialist Red-Green Alliance, however, described the vote by “the government and the right wing” in a post on Facebook as “unreasonably high,” and condemned the change in light of the “great” pension conditions enjoyed by many ministers who can retire at age 60.

“It is incomprehensible. It cannot be explained. And it cannot be defended,” Pelle Dragsted, a member of parliament for the party, said in another Facebook post, noting that teachers, scaffolders and many others in physically demanding jobs have said they cannot keep going for that long.

Denmark is the first European country to set its national retirement age beyond the 60s. The move will make it one of the highest in the world, on par with Libya.

In France in March 2023, more than a million people took to the streets nationwide to protest a rise in the retirement age to 64 — six years below the new Danish retirement age.

In September, the Chinese government passed legislation that would see the retirement age for men raised from 60 to 63, and from 50 and 55 for women, depending on their occupation, to 55 and 58, respectively.

The state pension age in the UK is set to rise to 67 between 2026 and 2028, although a review could see it revised to 68.

While the retirement age in the United States is similar to the UK’s, some Social Security benefits are available from age 62.

Better health in old age, increased life expectancy and remote working are allowing more Americans to work into old age. However, research shows that it is often a lack of money that keeps them working longer.

The-CNN-Wire
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