Most Europeans believe their country’s state pension system will soon become unaffordable – but they also think the current scheme is not generous enough, and do not support options for overhauling it such as raising the retirement age.
As populations age and fertility rates decline, Europe’s “pay as you go” state pension systems, cornerstones of the welfare state that have always relied on people in work paying the retirees’ pensions, are coming under increasingly heavy pressure.
With attempts to reform them meeting stiff and sometimes violent resistance in countries including France, Germany, Spain and Italy, a six-country YouGov poll reveals the extent of the public-opinion problem governments face.
Many people acknowledge state pension schemes are in trouble: majorities of between 61% and 52% in Italy, France, Germany and Spain said theirs was already unaffordable, as well as 45% of respondents in Poland. In the UK the figure was 32%.
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Looking to the future, people were even more pessimistic: majorities or near-majorities (49%–66%) in all six countries said they thought that by the time people currently in their 30s and 40s retire, their country’s system would be unaffordable.
Retirees were more optimistic about their country’s capacity to fund its state pension system. Pensioners in the UK were particularly upbeat, with 62% saying they think the UK state pension is affordable, against only 27% of their non-retired counterparts.
However, while they acknowledged the unsustainable cost, majorities of between 53% and 83% in all countries felt the amount that retirees receive was too low, with that sentiment even stronger (72-88%) among those actually getting it: pensioners.
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Most European pensioners rely on a state pension for their retirement income and in all six countries, majorities of those still in work – ranging from 57% in Germany and the UK to 72% in Italy – were not confident they would have a comfortable retirement.
Moreover, asked what measures they would support to make state pension schemes more affordable, there was a marked reluctance across all the countries surveyed to accept some of the reforms that many governments are seeking to implement.
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The survey found net opposition in all six countries to the ideas of raising the state pension age; increasing taxes on working-age people; obliging working-age children to support retired parents; and reducing the amount of the state pension.
Resistance to raising the retirement age was strong, with majorities or near-majorities ranging from 47% in France to 65% in Germany saying they were opposed to making people wait longer to claim their state pension than the current age.
Proportions ranging from 20% in the UK to 38% in Poland felt the state pension age should be 60, while 22% (Italy) to 45% (UK) felt it should be 65. A plurality (22%) in France said 62 – the age at which it now stands at after a planned increase to 64 was suspended.
Opposition to reducing the amount pensioners receive was even more overwhelming, ranging from 81% in Germany to 61% in Italy. But there was some support for legally obliging working-age people to pay into some form of private or workplace pension.
That suggestion was most popular in the UK (57%), where recent laws introduced an automatic system of payments into workplace pension schemes, but also found significant backing in Germany (49%) and France (41%).
The idea that the state should provide support for older workers to stay in their jobs for longer rather than retiring also proved fairly popular, with support ranging from 57% in Poland through 42% in Germany and France to a low of 27% in Italy.
Italians also stood out on measures increasing the burden on the richest: 66% supported higher taxes on better-off pensioners to fund better pensions for the poorest, and 52% favoured denying high-income retirees a state pension.
Across all six countries, more people (28% to 55%) felt retirees with higher-than-average pension incomes should bear more responsibility for funding more generous state pensions for low-income retirees, rather than younger generations (15% to 31%).
In general, pensioners and working-age people responded according to their interests: retirees tended to oppose lower pension payments, while people of working age mostly rejected raising the state pension age or taxes on their age group.
