Only 6 per cent work until they are 65
Only 6.11 per cent of the Belgian employees actually wait until the official retirement age of 65 to take up their retirement. The figures relate to 2013 and were released by the Pensions Minister Daniel Bacquelaine (Francophone liberal). He calls the latest measures taken by the federal government to lift the retirement age to 67 in this respect "symbolic".
The new federal government decided to raise the legal retirement age to 67 by 2030, to keep the Belgian pension system affordable as the population is ageing. However, it now turns out that not even 1 in 10 people actually work until they have reached the age of 67.
Bacquelaine says "there is no reason to think that the group of people that will work until the legal retirement age by 2030 will be bigger than is presently the case". The measure may be a symbolic one, it will have an effect. People will be in a job until a later age on average, it is believed. This is because the early retirement age will also be raised to 63, coming from 61.