Reaching retirement age is for many people long-awaited. Others would rather continue working and become so-called job holders.
Whether you choose to do so is influenced by several reasons, in addition to the desire to actually continue working. The size of your pension payment is affected by when you choose to retire, as well as several other factors. Among other things, how high a salary you had in your working life, how long you worked and how much you saved on your own.
Today, your pension can consist of different parts and come from several different sources. Everyone who has worked or lived in Sweden is entitled to the general pension. In addition, there is also an occupational pension, which the employer sets aside every month during your working life. It refers to a couple of percent of your salary.
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Source: The Pensions Authority
Retire? You have to do that
When it is time for you to draw a pension, it is up to you to request that the occupational pension be paid out.
With regard to the general pension, to which everyone who has worked or lived in Sweden is entitled, the Swedish Pensions Agency urges you to apply for the payment to be made at least three months before you want it in your account.
“If you have had sickness benefit and reach the age of 66, you can in some cases receive a general pension without having to submit an application. You will then receive a letter from the Swedish Pensions Authority a few months before your sickness benefit ends, telling you what applies to you. If you was born in 1957 instead applies to age 65”, they clarify on their homepage.
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The total average pension before tax differs between men and women.
Women’s total pension as a proportion of men’s amounts to 73 percent on average.
Source: The Pensions Authority
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High or low education – it makes a difference
A research study at Jönköping University has detailed in a report how Swedish pensioners use the “Withdrawal planner” function on minPension. Through this, the docents in economics, Johannes Hagen and Andrea Schneiderfound out how the Swedes want to withdraw their pensions.
“It is more common for people with higher education and income to use the tool and most opt out of having an occupational pension paid out for life,” they write in the report.
Of the 66-year-olds on whom the study is based, it turns out that nine out of ten of them at some point used minPension.se on at least one occasion. Of them, four out of ten have used the “Withdrawal planner” function.
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“Concerning that most retirees…”
Keeping track of one’s pension and future payments seems, according to the study, to be more popular among the elderly with higher education and income rather than among those with lower education and income. This is because more and more people with a higher education and salary are more likely to repeatedly use the functions available on minPension.se.
It also turns out that only four out of ten pensioners who use the “Withdrawal Planner” plan to have occupational pensions paid out for life. However, one in five plans to take it out over five years and about the same number plan to take it out over ten years.
– Many choose short withdrawal times for good reasons, but it is worrying that most pensioners opt out of the financial security that lifelong withdrawals provide in case they live longer than expected, says Johannes Hagen in the report.
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