The expected working life in Iceland is 47.4 years, according to Eurostat’s latest analysis. Vísir reports.
This is approximately twelve years longer than any EU nation can expect to work and five years more than Switzerland. Within the EU, Italians are expected to work the shortest, 31.2 years. That is 16.2 years shorter than Icelanders.
In the report, called How many years can people in the EU expect to work?, the expected length of working life increased in nearly all EU Member States between 2006 and 2016, albeit to different extents. Malta saw the highest increase (+5.1 years), followed by Hungary (+4.5 years) and Lithuania (+4.2 years), Poland (+2.7 years), Estonia (+2.6 years) and Austria (+2.4 years). In Cyprus (-0.1 year), Ireland and Portugal (both +0.3 year), it remained nearly the same.
The overall increase in the duration of working life across the Member States has generally been driven by the change in the duration of a woman’s working life. The length of time a woman could be expected to work rose between 2006 and 2016 in all EU Member States, except for Romania, notably in Malta (+9.0 years), Lithuania (+4.6 years), Spain (+4.4 years), Hungary (+4.2 years), Luxembourg (+3.6 years) and Austria (+3.2 years).
In contrast, the duration of working life for men dropped in five Member States: Cyprus (-2.4 years), Greece (-1.4 years), Ireland (-1.1 year), Spain (-0.8 year), and Portugal (-0.5 year).
