archived-news

The chief economist with the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW), a German conservative economic think tank, said that low birth rates and growing life expectancy will lead to requiring citizens to work until they are 70 before they can qualify for pensions.

Michael Huether told the German daily newspaper Rheinische Post on Wednesday that current plans to raise the retirement age to 67 might not go far enough to alleviate the growing demographic crisis of falling birth rates and aging populations.

"When we look at rising life expectancy and declining birth rates in Germany, a retirement age of 70 must be considered," said Huether.

"We should not stop raising the pension in 2029, but instead continue with it afterwards."

In 2007, the German government decided to increase the legal retirement age from 65 to 67 incrementally from 2012 through 2029.

Deutsche Welle reported that the political lobby group Sozialverband Deutschland (SoVD) condemned Huether's idea as "summer madness" and that a rise in the pension age from 65 would be an "effective pension cut."

Similarly, France has undertaken controversial legislation to change the French pension system and raise the retirement age to 62 from 60.

French Labor Minister Eric Woerth presented the bill to the cabinet in mid-June and then delivered it to the National Assembly. Voting is expected to take place in September.

AFP reported that the draft law is unpopular and that unions are determined to oppose the pension reform plan.

"The risk of social unrest after the summer holidays has not been dissipated," said Dominique Barbet, a BNP Paribas analyst, according to AFP.

Social upheaval and economic decline as the result of shrinking and aging populations have been explored by researchers and exposed in documentaries, notably "Demographic Winter: the decline of the human family" and its sequel "Demographic Bomb: demography is destiny."

In fact, a report released in 2008 by Eurostat, the European Union's statistical service, showed that by 2015, the number of deaths in Europe will have outstripped the number of births. By 2060, the ratio of people of working age to those over age 65 will be two to one.

The report showed that the growth momentum of Europe's 27 member states will continue to carry it until 2035; after this the population will begin to decline drastically from a predicted 521 million to 506 million by 2060.

Population decline is by no means endemic to Europe, as most "developed" countries have birth rates far below replacement levels.