Facts: Retirement age and years of earnings
The average retirement age is 64.8 years for 2022.
There is a big difference in retirement age between different professions. Male university teachers work the longest, 66.8 years on average. Female machine operators leave the earliest, on average at 63.7 years. Care assistants retire at 64.2 years for women and 64.4 years for men. Men who are manual laborers in construction retire at 64.4 years.
The number of years in which the pension is earned also varies. The biggest differences are between those born in Denmark and those born abroad. Those who immigrated have, on average, just over half the earning years, 23.5 years versus 43 years.
Source: The Swedish Pensions Agency
The Swedish Pensions Authority has investigated the situation with our pension withdrawals. In 2020, the retirement age began to rise in the first step, the earliest pension withdrawal was changed from 61 to 62 years.
“Then we had a substantial increase in the withdrawal age,” says Robin Fondberg, analyst at the Swedish Pensions Agency.
Going earlier again
But since then, Swedes’ pension withdrawals have been brought forward again. When the Pensions Authority draws a graph of the development, it looks like a hump for 2020, we have started to retire earlier again after that.
— It is difficult to say what happened.
Now in January, the retirement age was raised again to 63 for the earliest withdrawal. An increase in the average age is now visible, but how the year ends is too early to say. The average retirement age was 64.8 years for 2022.
Robin Fondberg states that the rules on raising the retirement age have not had much effect so far.
— The idea was that as the average life expectancy increases, the retirement age should also increase, but not much has happened with the retirement age yet.
The age for receiving a guaranteed pension is raised
Next year, however, there may be other buns. Then the age to receive a guaranteed pension will be raised from 65 to 66, and Robin Fondberg believes that it will show in the numbers.
“Then it will be even more relevant to follow up on how it went,” she says.
But retirement ages vary greatly between different professions. Those in heavy and tiring jobs retire earlier than those in white-collar professions.
For example, female machine operators retire at age 63.7, while male doctors remain in the workforce until age 66.3, on average. Even male university teachers work on, right up to the age of 66.8.