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European pension policies have undergone a fundamental change throughout the last 20 years from promoting early retirement to extending working lives. Following recent labour market data, it seems as if the efforts are successful in delaying older workers' labour force exit and increasing their employment rate. Although this development is found across Europe, its extent varies largely by the country context. In addition, it also differs between social groups, hinting at a persistence (or even re-emergence) of social inequalities in the transition to retirement. Comparative evidnce from the European labour force survey for fours elected country case studies suggests that already privileged groups benefit most from the policy shift, while low-skilled workers are struggling to extend their working lives in often hard working conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with demographic ageing, European policy makers since the mid-1990s have taken a turn from fostering early retirement to promoting longer working life by reducing early exit incentives and facilitating work continuation. However, it remains open whether these reforms are yet reflected in the retirement plans and preferences of future pensioners’ cohorts. Using most recent data on desired retirement ages from the fifth wave of the European Social Survey (2010/11 wave), this paper empirically investigates how far current policy reforms are in line with the retirement age preferences of older workers aged 45 and over. Results show that older workers approaching retirement ages still intend to retire before the politically envisioned age of 65, and in many cases also before nationally defined standard retirement ages. Despite visible progress in implementing active ageing measures, the challenge of motivating older workers to continue working until or even beyond retirement ages thus remains. At the same time, there are regime-specific problem groups that face difficulties in adjusting to the active ageing paradigm of longer working life. Especially in countries with little employment support, those with unstable work careers, employment interruptions and few financial resources are at a high risk of being crowded out from late career employment and thus from the possibility of ensuring a decent standard of living in old age. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]