The EU Ministers for Employment and Social Affairs, meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday 20 June, will take note of the key conclusions of the “2024 Pension Adequacy Report” of the Social Protection Committee and the European Commission.
The findings of this latest report are mixed. “The risk of poverty and social exclusion for older people has continued growing since 2019, driven by the rising relative income poverty, despite decreasing material and social deprivation”, explains the document dated 7 June.
“In 2022, more than one in five people aged 65 and above were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU. This represents 18.5 million people, a number growing due to both the rising poverty rate and the ageing of population”. And older women are more often confronted with these risks.
However, income inequality among older people has narrowed since 2019, perhaps reflecting widespread measures to protect low-income pensioners during recent crises.
But the increase in life expectancy has also been slowing down in the EU over the last decade. “This long-term trend was exacerbated by excess mortality during the Covid-19 pandemic”, even though the proportion of healthy years for older people has remained stable overall in the EU.
The report also notes that covering care needs in old age remains “a critical social challenge”. The total cost of long-term care in the absence of public social protection can be very high in relation to the pension income of the elderly, particularly for those with greater needs.
The report, which also summarises the various reforms implemented in the Member States to strengthen pension schemes, notes that “while the inflation wave observed in 2022-23 reduced the real value of pensions in most Member States, the purchasing power of pensioners was still well protected compared with that of the working-age population”.
Link to the conclusions: https://aeur.eu/f/cnr (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)