Retirement from 72 years of age? It is time to accept that we will have to work more

Andrius Kubilius MEP argued at the week’s events that the Green Paper said there could be a labor shortage in Lithuania in the future. And the problem of work can be solved in other ways, for example by making Lithuania a more attractive country.

“The first thing I am is not a great specialist in pensions and working age, but once I have been invited, I would open that Green Paper. In fact, I think it’s about completely different things: about the needs of older people across Europe and how to help them maintain healthy aging, active aging and work, how to create more services that are inevitably useful in aging and just one of the What I think is mentioned very briefly is that there is a labor shortage in the European Union and then it is calculated for all countries, there is a map, the countries are colored and it says how many people should work.

In Lithuania, due to the demographic contraction of the workforce, the question arose of how to fill the gap. One such suggestion is that all people who may still feel capable of working would be encouraged to work longer after retirement age. Here we talk about working age, but there are other things that can solve this problem, but, for example, the return of the same Lithuanians to Lithuania if Lithuania becomes more patriotic than Great Britain. Or, if Lithuania could open up more to the immigrant workforce, that problem would be solved in another way ”, considers A. Kubilius.

“Therefore, the aging generation must be seen as potentially capable of solving this problem, at least in part, if people are allowed to continue to be healthy and active,” added A. Kubilius.

Gruževskis: we will not prevent raising the working age

Boguslav Gruževskis, director of the Lithuanian Center for Social Research, assures that in Lithuania we will not prevent the increase in the working age both due to demographic changes and general changes in the EU.

“You would probably agree with Mr. Kubilis that, first of all, we need to talk about the living and working conditions of the elderly population today. Much more attention needs to be paid to their problems. You mentioned the example of Denmark, although Denmark is not an example for us: In Denmark, only 25 percent of people work at retirement age, when people work for economic reasons, and in Lithuania, 80 percent.

Lithuanians accept work in retirement as coercion, which is why there is such a sharp reaction, which is why it is bad to talk about it with a politician, especially at the beginning of the legislature. Dear colleagues, first of all in Lithuania today we have to talk about a completely different topic. Daiva, you are right, because we certainly will not prevent the increase of the working age in Lithuania due to both demographic changes and general changes in the EU, but today we have to talk about measures that would help older people.

First of all, in the lives of people of retirement age. Unfortunately, we do not hear much about the most important issues either in the Seimas debates or in the activities of the Government, and indeed, every serious decision today must be measured by its impact on the lives of people of retirement age and the solution of aging problems in Lithuania. This should be the main motivation to form or finance any more serious measure in Lithuania, ”says B. Gruževskis.

Member of the Seimas Algirdas Sysas says that it is necessary to see the whole situation and now the most important thing is to take care of the employment of the elderly.

As my colleague Kubilius mentioned, the Green Paper talks about what awaits Europe in general, not only Lithuania, but also other countries. I don’t know, he took a number and everyone started talking about him. It is clear that this is a shock and the honorable scientist rightly said that it is not popular, but I want to react to what has been said.

Lithuania is preparing for such aging; remember that in the 1990s the retirement age for women was fifty years and for men fifty-five, in 2025 we will have a retirement age of 65, which means that in thirty-five years we have increased ten years for men, fifteen for women and so far. And to speak of a new extension would be irrational and would only provoke unnecessary passions. It seems to me that the process must be completed and the predictions are something that is often not fulfilled, ”says Sys.

The four most important directions

According to B. Gruževskis, the emphasis is not on those problems at the moment.

“We consider that retirement age longer because we accept it as coercion. And it should not be coercion, but the free choice of the person, but it seems to me that here it is not the main problem, but the main problem that we are talking about retirement at all, and you even mentioned the issue of reducing pensions in the debate. If we want to solve this problem in principle, we have to talk about the aging of the population in general; here is the problem. Raising the retirement age, raising the working age and even lowering pensions is nonsense that should not be discussed in public, perhaps only in the yellow or black press.

In practice, there are hundreds of decisions we can make to improve the lives of older people in Lithuania. The issue of population aging is a key issue, not a retirement age or a pension issue. Raising the retirement age today is the least effective way to begin to consider what is uninteresting and ineffective for people. It is an shedding of responsibility on the shoulders of the elderly. There are many steps to prevent such measures from being implemented, ”says B. Gružesvskis.

According to him, we must speak of four directions that would help solve the problems of an aging population.

“The first direction is a clear immigration policy, the second direction is a very responsible investment, we must promote the creation of well-paid jobs. The third area is fiscal policy, which needs to be improved today, and the fourth area is the attractiveness of employment for older people. All of this can be done today, ”says B. Gružesvskis.