Retirement age
The retirement age, even retirement age, describes the age at which a person first takes an old-age pension of the statutory pension insurance ( GRV) to complete.
The retirement age as a statistical quantity
The statistical retirement age is calculated as the average of first occupation of all pensioners a year. This group of recruits is made up of people of different vintages. Subsets for men and women or for employees and workers or regional groupings can be considered separately.
In 2004, the average retirement age was in Germany in men 63.1 years, women 63.0 years. In 2004 it was in the new federal states in men was 62.4 years in the former West Germany at 63.3 years, for women it was 61.2 years compared to 63.4 years. The values are all about a year more than those from 2000.
The number of pensioners has increased from 1990 to 21.5 million in 2005 to 26.8 million. This increase will continue in the coming years so. In comparison, the said average retirement age has remained fairly stable and only increased slightly. It is about 1 /10 of the population pensioners, in fact, considered only the new entries a year.
Individual retirement age
Individual retirement age has an influence on the amount of benefits:
Who claimed before reaching the statutory retirement age pension, the pension is reduced by 0.3 % per month to accelerated. Who only after they have reached a pension takes up despite fulfilled waiting time, the old-age pension is increased by 0.5 % for each calendar month of the subsequent purchase.
This pension discounts or surcharges are caused by the fact that the age factor in the formula for calculating the pension is correspondingly lower or higher than 1.0 ( § 77 SGB VI). Deductions to compensate for the higher costs incurred by the pension insurance by the longer pension time when pensions are based prematurely.
In addition, the actual pension Renteneintritssalter reducing or enhancing effect of indirectly if doing less or more pension contributions were paid.
Future
The legislature intends to with the future increase of the retirement age and the age limits for other retirement benefits, to offset rising as a result of increased life expectancy pension costs. However, it is still an open question, whether the average retirement age will rise in the same way.