All highly developed nations and even most underdeveloped nations grant state pensions — what we call Social Security — to their senior citizens. The first time a fixed finish line at a certain age was established for such a stipend took place in Germany in 1889 under the tight-fisted conservative leadership of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. He famously proclaimed a nation can become a world power not through uplifting political speeches or a ruler’s diplomatic maneuvering, but only through the power and sacrifice of “iron and blood.”
The cagey leader of the Second Reich (1871-1933) also recognized the importance of tossing a few bones and wiener schnitzel with tankards of Bavarian beer to the peasants and proletariat. Easing people’s anxiety over how to lead a decent life deep into old age staved off and neutralized the increasing appeal of socialist policies beyond those on the Left. An ancient proverb captures the chancellor’s artful statesmanship: Bismarck wielded “a magic spear which heals as well as wounds.”
While Germany does get credit for being the first country in the world to adopt a state pension plan, not that many old people at the time benefited from it. Bismarck’s administration set the retirement age at 70 when life expectancy in Germany in the 1880s and 90s was about 37 or 38 years. Now that is realpolitik.
The Social Security program introduced in the United States in 1937 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt echoed Bismarck’s, though by setting the retirement age at 65, he was slightly more generous than the Iron Chancellor a half-century earlier. Life expectancy was 63 overall in the U.S. during the late-depression years — 61 for men; 65 for women.
Life expectancy has gradually increased worldwide from about 50 in 1900 to almost 80 today. The combination of a steadily shrinking workforce paying into the system, along with an expanding retirement community depleting the system, is unsustainable across the planet except at the North and South poles. It doesn’t matter if a national government is democratic or authoritarian. All governments are in the same boat, desperately trying to stay afloat.
I argued in this space last month that we should raise the retirement age, but it should be noted that, compared with other countries, we are slightly ahead of the pack with a retirement age of 67. Most developed countries are bunched in a narrow three-year band with retirement ages starting between 65 and 67, frequently a couple of years younger for women. Here’s a brief list:
– Canada, Japan, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico have a retirement age of 65.
– Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Cyprus have a retirement age of 66.
– Spain and Portugal have a retirement age of 66.5.
– Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Greece, Australia, and Israel have a retirement age of 67.
Russia is near the bottom at 60. So too China, where men can retire at 60, white-collar or professional women at 55, and blue-collar women at 50. However, China is in the early stage of a 2025-2040 reform with incremental adjustments over 15 years: 60 to 63, 55 to 58, and 50 to 55. (Also in the Red Brotherhood: Vietnam, 61, and in Cuba, 65 for men and 60 for women.)
Over the last few years, efforts have been underway in many countries to raise the retirement age, though not by much. Germany, Spain and the U.K. are set to bump from 66 to 67, and the U.K. is also considering a move to 71 by 2040. Denmark is in the lead with an age of 70 by 2040 for all people born after 1967.
Life expectancy in all Western European countries runs from 82 to 84, the highest in the world outside Japan (85). At the same time, a survey a few years ago by the IntoTheMinds blog by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab found that a large majority of Europeans want to retire at 62 or earlier. About one-third of the sample thought 62 was about the right age to retire, and more than half thought that age was too high. This is also the case in the U.S. A Pew Research Center survey in 2025 found most Americans believe the best age to retire is around 61 or 62. Only 6% suggested 70 or older.
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For the most absurd retirement policy, we need only look at the country which over several centuries has elevated the absurd to a way of life — absurd philosophy, literature, theater, runway fashion shows, and revolution: France, currently in the throes of another ridiculous spectacle. In 2023, French President Emmanuel Macron managed to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, but the backlash against the move postponed the day of reckoning out to 2030.
Macron is in his final year of two back-to-back five-year terms, with the presidential election coming up next spring. The electorate is highly polarized, with a strong possibility the center will collapse, opening the way for a presidential duel between the National Rally’s Marine Le Pen on the Right and France Unbowed’s Jean-Luc Melenchon on the Left. Both agree on one point: Le Pen wants to bring the retirement age back down to 62; Melenchon, 60.
Bob Armstrong is the author of a memoir, No Exit from Vietnam: A Memoir by a Marine Corps Veteran (Pen and Sword Books), and a contributing writer to Thursday Review, an online magazine.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
