France pension reform

[Hopedun]

I was reading an article in The Times which I of course can't find again now, where they were considering a staggered retirement age. So you would get your pension 43 years after starting work. So someone who started work at 16 could take their pension at 59 and so on.

The thinking behind this is that generally people who start work earlier in life tend to do harder, more physical jobs so they will be ready to retire earlier. Those who do more highly qualified jobs tend to start their working Iives later so would therefore retire later after the 43 years.

I thought this sounded like a very fair way of doing things. I see a lot of manual workers who are absolutely physically done in by their mid 50s but have to limp on til their 60s to collect their pension.

Obviously there would be some issues to iron out but it does sound a fair way of doing things.

What are your thoughts on this?

I didn't intend to be either sarcastic or insulting @latetothefisting . Most people would agree that a lot of nursing is as physically demanding as care work, but not all of it is. I'd agree that there's plenty of creative/artistic satisfaction in gardening or catering or repairing, maintenance and building stuff, rather more than data processing or picking/packing Amazon orders. And I take my hat off to anyone who's prepared to wrangle under-fives for a living. Sometimes, I've stood awestruck watching tower cranes and big diggers at work, marvelling at the operators' skill and precision. But in general, the work that carries social prestige requires a degree-equivalent qualification which is why so much of MN education is discussing A level subjects and Russell Group universities.

Tricky to calculate though. I earned sufficient at 16, 17 and 18, holidays, weekends etc that I had NI qualifying years, yet I was still at school. Then three years at university, one year of which was an NI qualifying year.

Started my career job at 21. But by then I had 31 years to work to gain a full state pension. In theory I could have stopped working at 52 if I could have found someone to keep me between 52 and 67.

If I was French, when would I be entitled to retire?

@MintJulia in France, when you can retire and receive the SP depends on your profession and (IIRC) certain unions for rail employees have negotiated the right to retire from 52. Macron's reforms aim to iron out some of the inconsistencies, as well as lifting the burden on the tax payers. France has similar demographic issues to most first world countries.

It's the same in Germany, you are entitled after 45 years of work, no matter your age.