EARLY RETIREMENT IN EUROPEAN SOCIETIES
There has been a growing number of elderly people within European Societies over the last twenty years that have taken early retirement. “The Netherlands and France have experienced the sharpest fall in employment rates among men aged 5-64 (45 per cent and 43 per cent respectively) between 1971 and 1991. In Germany, Ireland, Spain and the UK there was a 30 per cent reduction in the employment rate of this group over the same period.” {Walker and Maltby, 997, p 72) The reason for people having an early retirement may not have been because they wanted to retire early but because the work force may have selected older people for redundancy rather than the young. They will find it extremely difficult to find alternative employment because of the age that they are. There is ill no legislation in many countries including the UK to deal with age discrimination. In the European Societies Spain and France have legislation to deal with age discrimination.
An early retirement will not be a problem for people with the financial assets or private pension schemes that will give them a relatively good standard of living. is not very good for low paid workers who have no financial means to support themselves. In the UK they are often only left with social security benefits and their standard of living is not very high. This puts a financial burden on the government to financially support the person before they have reached the normal retirement age. There may be some hope in the future due to the ageing of European societies and the drop in the number of younger workers. This may force people to continue working until a much later age.
PENSION SYSTEMS IN EUROPEAN SOCIETIES
The levels of public pensions through public policy is very important for the elderly because throughout Europe the main source of income is the public pension. This means that any changes which occur in relation to public pensions ill have a direct effect on the living conditions of older people. “In most EU countries there are two tiers of pensions: the basic statutory pension schemes and the supplementary or complementary ones. However, the dominant pension model couples an earnings- related pension with a voluntary occupational one.” {Walker and Maltby, 1997, p 45}
There has been some evidence of rising living standards of some older people throughout European societies. “The French government has sought to raise the incomes of older people by extensions to social assistance systems and by indexing retirement pensions to net wages or prices, which ever is higher, so that they are tied to the rises in general living standards.” {Walker and Maltby, 1997 p 47} In Italy and Spain the general living standards of older people have risen due to a rise in the level of pensions. “The only member state to contradict this general rise in living standards is Portugal. Although there has been a rise in living standards since 1974, the purchasing power of the old-age pension is declining.” {Walker and Maltby, 1997, p 47}
The UK has seen an improvement in the position of older people, compared with other people in the bottom of the income distribution. Even though there has been a slight improvement for older people they are still a large amount of older people within the UK living in poverty. “Among the poorest older people in the UK are at least 700,000 living on incomes below the income support levels.” {Department of Health and Social Security 1989, Walker and Maltby, 1997, p 49} There are growing numbers of older people that would be entitled to income support but do not claim it this could be because they do not know that they are entitled to it, or it could be due to the stigma attached to claiming income support. The reason why there is such a wide gap between the incomes of those people that work and those that claim social security benefits (the older person} is to try and maintain the work ethic. The normal retirement age in the UK, which is 60 years old for a female and 65 years for a man, was an incentive for people to continue working until later in their lives. The Bevendge report stated that people should not take early retirement but should continue working for as long as possible.
There is a sharp contrast between older people that did have a well paid job and are able to have obtained occupational pensions or private pensions. They are less likely to be living in poverty compared to people that were on a low income and have got to rely on state benefits.
WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS THAT GOVERNMENTS WILL HAVE.
REGARDING PENSIONS. IF THE LEVELS OF OLDER PEOPLE CONTINUE TO INCREASE?
In the U.K. the Phillips Committee was set up in July 1953 to review the economic and financial problems involved in providing for old age, having regard to the prospective increase in the numbers of the aged.” {Phillips Committee, 1954, p 1, Bond, Coleman and Peace, 1993, p 300) The committee’s report suggested an increase in the retirement age to 68 for men and 63 for women. It also placed a great emphasis on individual contributions by people to provide for themselves in old age. Throughout the European Societies there was a large amount of pessimism and uncertainty that the welfare state would be able to cope with the growing number of older people in the future. “The largest concentrations of pessimism were in Denmark, France, the former FGR and the Netherlands, this may be due to the feeling that the current high pension levels in these countries would not be able to continue.” {Walker and Maltby, 1997, p 67} There seems to be growing pressure on the governments throughout the European societies to maintain a good pension level for older people. The growing numbers of older people within society is making this difficult. There needs to be some public policy that will help older people to be able to stay in work instead of being discriminated against because of their age and forced into taking an early retirement.
HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
Even though there are still a lot of older people that are do not have any health or social care needs, older people are more likely to require some form of care. The majority of the care for older people throughout the European societies is provided by the family and not through the state. This may cause problems for policy makers in the future because of the decline in birth rates, an increase in divorce rates and women returning to the labour market (women are generally the main providers of care) This means that because of the increasing numbers of older people and less people within the family in the future being able to look after them, there needs to be policies in place for the long - term care of older people. There are several countries that have already begun to develop policies for the care of older people in the future among these are Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. Along with the need for long - term care there is also going to be an increasing amount of people that are going to require medicine. In the UK, this is going to result in more money being spent on N.H.S prescriptions.
WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR THIS EXTRA CARE THAT IS REQUIRED?
Throughout Europe most people are opposed to the private sector being used to pay for long term care. “More than seven out often favoured either a compulsory public insurance scheme or a public service financed by through taxation, and if the ‘don’t knows’ are excluded this rose to just under eight out of ten.” { Walker and Maltby, 1997, p 107)
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF AN AGEING SOCIETY?
Even though there may be some problems that governments within European societies will have to deal with in the future to help older people maintain a good standard of living, there are some positive aspects of an ageing society. The level of crime will be likely to decrease due to the ageing of society. Older people are less likely to be involved in crime so the amount that is spent on crime each year may decrease in the future. Older people already have their education so this is likely to save the government money too.
CONCLUSION
The growing number of older people within European societies may cause some problems in the future due to strain on the welfare systems to provide pensions. The UK already has got a high amount of older people living in poverty. There also seems to be a large amount of people that are retiring early throughout Europe. Some older people do not have a choice and are given an early retirement by their employers. There needs to some kind of policy implemented against age discrimination to make it much more easier for older people to find employment or to stay in employment for a longer period of time. Even though there has been a rise in the general living conditions of the poor, there are still a large amount of older people throughout the European societies that are living in poverty. If the numbers of older people continue to increase, the numbers of older people living in poverty could increase and the welfare systems may find it difficult to cope with.
Even though the general health of older people is generally good, a large amount of older people still require more health and social care then a younger person. Throughout the European societies they have mainly relied on the help of the family to give elderly relatives support when they need it. There are however, a lot of changes taking place within societies now which may make the job of looking after elderly relatives more difficult. The state may in the future have to be prepared to make adequate arrangements to care for an increasing number of older people.
When we talk about older people we tend to see them as a ‘social problem’. There are some benefits of having an older population, such as a decrease in crime and less money needed to be spent on education. An ageing population seems to be inevitable the only solution for European societies is to make sure they have adequate policies to help them with their financial, health and social are needs.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Munday, Brian and Ely, Peter, Social Care In Europe. 1996, Prentice Hall Europe, Hertfordshire, England.
Walker, Alan and Maltby, Tony, Rethinking Ageing, Ageing Europe. 1997, Open University Press, Buckingham, England.