A slump in the life expectancy forecast has delayed the incremental climb of the Dutch pension age, according to Wouter Koolmees, the Netherlands minister for social affairs.
As a result, the retirement age won’t be raised in 2024.
The government has been gradually increasing its pension eligibility age, beginning in 2012, when the retirement age was 65. The retirement age, currently 66, is set to jump by another three months next year.
The current schedule would set the pension age at 67 and three months in 2022, to keep the pension program affordable. The government also has allowed employees within five years of retirement to make additional contributions to the program to bolster their benefits.
The nation’s pension age is based partly on an annual longevity estimate from Statistics Netherlands. The average life expectancy in the Netherlands is about 81½ years.
The Dutch authorities concluded that life expectancy had dropped by about five months for 65-year-olds in 2017 due to the winter’s flu epidemic. As a result, the pension age won’t rise past its 2022 bar, and will now increase in accordance with life expectancy from that point.