Retirement: two years and two months later than in 2010

According to the latest edition of the retirement panorama, published on Wednesday by Drees, the average retirement age was 62 years and 8 months at the end of 2022.

This increase of two years and two months since 2010 is explained "mainly" by "the increases in legal ages resulting from the 2010 retirement reform", recalls the Drees.

The 2010 reform raised the legal retirement age to 62, compared to 60 until then.

For the future, the Drees predicts that the 2023 reform - which again pushed back the legal age to 64 - will have a less significant effect than that of 2010, with a six-month postponement of the average age, it indicated during a meeting to present the panorama, organized by the association of social information journalists.

In fact, she explains, the 2023 reform left the retirement age unchanged without reduction, at 67, unlike the 2010 reform which increased it from 65 to 67.

Furthermore, it did not change the retirement age for disability pension recipients, which remains at 62.

Among other notable figures, the average pension stood at 1.626 euros gross (1.512 euros net) in 2022 for retirees residing in France, excluding survivor's pensions. That of women is 38% lower than that of men, a gap that is reduced to 26% when including survivor's pensions.

These differences in income are explained by differences in remuneration and career profiles.

As in previous years, the standard of living of retirees was "slightly higher than that of the population as a whole" in 2021 (latest figures available), notes the Drees.

The median standard of living of retirees living in metropolitan France in ordinary housing (excluding nursing homes, etc.) was 1.970 euros per month, or 2,1% more than the population as a whole (1.930 euros).

From the end of 2012 to the end of 2022, however, retirees experienced a certain erosion of their purchasing power, despite annual revaluations.

Thus, the gross pension of retirees residing in France and having liquidated their pension before 2012 decreased by 5,5% between 2012 and 2022, at "constant euros" (figure corrected for inflation).