Norwegians wanting to retire earlier and falling desired retirement age, Digi Mart USA News (Norway): After many years of rising figures, the trend has reversed: Norwegians want to stop working earlier again. Today, working people want to retire about one year earlier than in 2015, and experts are concerned.
The dream of stopping work a little sooner may not be new, but in Norway it has now become clearly measurable. After more than a decade in which Norwegians wanted to work ever longer, the trend has turned, and working people today would like to leave working life roughly one year earlier than they did ten years ago.
This is shown by the latest measurement from the Norwegian Senior Policy Barometer, presented at the end of October. The survey is conducted by the analysis firm Ipsos on behalf of the Knowledge Centre for Longer Working Life and has been carried out since 2003.
This year, just over 3,000 working Norwegians answered the question of the age at which they would most like to stop working entirely.
During the barometer’s first years, a clear development was visible in one direction. In 2003 the desired retirement age was 61, and until 2015 it rose steadily to 66.
Since then the curve has pointed downward. In this year’s measurement, the average desired age for stopping work is 65.1 years, according to the Knowledge Centre for Longer Working Life.
What is interesting is that the decline is occurring even though Norway’s current pension rules make it more financially advantageous to keep working longer. The economics thus favor working a few more years, yet an increasing number say they would rather stop.
Behind the average lie large differences. The youngest in working life, those under 30, say they want to stop working at 63.5 years of age.
Among those who have already passed 60, the picture is entirely different. There, the average desired retirement age is 68.9 years.
This may sound paradoxical, but it is a well-known pattern. Those who have retirement far away often find it easier to dream of early leave, while those who are close to it may appreciate work, colleagues and the structure of everyday life more than they expected.
Industry also matters. Those working in culture and primary industries such as agriculture, forestry and fishing want to work the longest, until age 68.
Those working in hotels and restaurants, in industry or in skilled trades would instead prefer to retire earliest, at around age 64.
The barometer also asked how much working people look forward to retirement. Those who long for it most are those in their 40s and 50s.
However, the largest increase since the previous measurement in 2024 is seen among those in their 30s and 40s.
This suggests that it is not only those approaching retirement who have begun to think differently, and that the change runs deeper and has reached younger age groups as well.
For Kari Østerud, director of the Knowledge Centre for Longer Working Life, the result is a warning signal.
“We have reached a ceiling. This is not going to pass,” she says.
According to Østerud, the development is a problem for society as a whole, because a longer working life is a prerequisite for financing welfare when the population grows older.
“More people must work more if we are to maintain welfare in society,” she says.
She also urges employers to take the issue seriously. According to Østerud, it will become increasingly difficult for companies and organizations to retain their older employees, and this requires workplaces to actively work to make seniors want to stay.
The question of how long we should work is also highly relevant in Sweden. There, retirement ages have been raised gradually in recent years and, since 2026, are tied to the so-called guide age, which is meant to follow average life expectancy.
This year the guide age for retirement is 67, and the earliest age for drawing the general pension is 64.
At the same time, there is also a debate in Sweden about adapting working life so that more people can cope with and want to work longer, with more flexible working hours, opportunities for skills development late in a career, and workplaces that make use of older workers’ experience.
How long you choose to work has a major impact on your future pension. Each extra year in working life means more years of contributions and fewer years over which the pension must last, which results in a higher monthly payment.
Conversely, drawing a pension a few years earlier can mean a noticeably lower pension for the rest of life.
Anyone dreaming of stopping early therefore does well to begin planning well in advance, for example by reviewing their private pension savings and finding out what their occupational pension looks like.
Norwegians’ dreams of an earlier pension may not be so strange. But the question is how many can actually afford to make them come true.
