It’s no secret that many European countries are raising retirement ages, while the expected duration of working life has also been increasing.
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It’s an issue that has sparked protests across the continent in recent years: France infamously broke out into mass, country-wide demonstrations and strikes in 2023 after then-Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne attempted to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
The reform went through parliament, but the National Assembly later voted in 2025 to postpone its implementation until 2028, after the next French presidential election, to avoid another collapse in government.
In Romania, the government is raising women’s retirement age to 65 from 63 by 2035, to match that of men, as part of wider pension reforms. It’s also gradually raising the retirement age for judges and prosecutors to 65 — the earliest they can retire currently is their late 40s, depending on how long they’ve served.
Denmark’s parliament has also passed a law raising the state pension age to 70 by the year 2040, in an attempt to tie it to increasing life expectancy, giving it one of the highest retirement ages in Europe.
Alongside these measures, the expected duration of working life across the EU has also been increasing.
Specifically, the expected average working life for people aged 15 and over in the EU reached 37.5 years in 2025, according to Eurostat. The figure is up from 37.2 years in 2024 and 35.2 years in 2016.
Eurostat’s indicator estimates how many years a 15-year-old can expect to spend in the labour force under current conditions. It includes periods of both employment and unemployment, and is not a measure of retirement age or how long people should work.
However, there are significant differences across EU countries, and there appears to be a north-south divide.
In seven EU countries, workers are expected to stay in a job for 40 years or more: this is the case in the Netherlands (44), Sweden (43.3), Denmark (42.6), Estonia (41.5), Ireland (40.7), Germany (40.2) and Finland (40.1).
At the other end of the table, Romania (32.7), Italy (33) and Bulgaria (34.6) have the shortest working lives on average.
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There’s also a noticeable gender gap among EU citizens, with men (39.5) expected to work on average around four more years than women (35.4).
Men in the Netherlands (45.9), Sweden, Denmark (both 44.5) and Ireland (43.4) have the longest working lives. The shortest expected working lives for men are in Bulgaria (35.9 years), Romania (36.0) and Croatia (36.3), according to Eurostat.
Meanwhile, women work the longest in Sweden (42.3 years), the Netherlands (41.9) and Estonia (41.8), but those with the shortest working lives in the EU are women in Italy (28.4), Romania (29.1) and Greece (31.8).
Eurostat notes that the figures don’t reflect legal retirement ages, policy targets, or any prescriptive measure of how long people must or should work. Rather, they describe observed labour market participation patterns.
Nevertheless, it is true that European countries face demographic pressures across the board, particularly longer life expectancy and lower birth rates.
Against this reality, governments are increasingly turning to unpopular measures such as raising retirement ages, reducing early retirement options and increasing pension contributions to try and combat the strain on their social and healthcare systems.