The average life expectancy has been gradually increasing in Spain until reaching 82.3 years, that is, the age that those born in 2021 are estimated to reach. Although there are important differences that exceed 6 years depending on the level of economic income and whether or not they have university studies, this fact is leading to delaying the retirement age.
In France, for example, where life expectancy at birth is 82 years, Emmanuel Macron decided last spring to postpone retirement from age 62 to age 64, which caused tremendous public unrest.
In Spain, the current retirement age is 66 years and 4 months – or 65 when you have contributed for 37 years and nine months. Starting in 2027 it will increase to age 67, and to retire at age 65 it will be necessary to have contributed even longer, 38 years and six months. The Círculo de Empresarios has already put on the table the possibility of postponing it until age 68 and, if possible, until age 72.
Not being able to retire until such late ages is causing rivers of ink to flow. In April, for example, The New York Times published an article in which it introduced an interesting variable: “life expectancy” is not the same as “health expectancy,” meaning the age from which people, Also on average, they begin to suffer physical and mental problems.
According to the INE, the number of years in good health at birth in Spain was the same for women as for men in 2020 (the last date for which information is available): 66.3 years. We are above the Union average: the figures are 64.5 years for European women and 63.5 years for European men.
Having a greater or lesser health expectancy depends on the type of job, the lifestyle, the level of income or having university studies since this has an impact, for example, on the attitude towards health: with a better education, Patients, in addition to getting sick less (thanks to preventing this possibility), have greater adherence to treatments.
For all these reasons, there are people who begin their downhill slope at a very early age (there are chronic diseases from childhood) and there are others who, at 75 years old, are in perfect condition, although they are the exception, since it must be insisted that the average health expectancy, taking into account all ages, is 66.3 years in Spain.
This means that the majority of those who will retire in Spain during 2023 at the age of 66.4 will have already begun their physical and mental decline since at 66.3 years, according to the INE, the starting signal takes place, in statistical terms, from the downhill.
If some age groups are considered, those who reach the age of 50 in good health (a minority) can expect – according to the INE – to be free of diseases for 21.4 more years. For their part, those who reach the age of 65 in perfect condition (an even smaller population group) tend to be well in body and mind, in statistical terms, until they are 76.5 years old in the case of women and men. up to 76.6 years in theirs. From these ages and until the moment of death, it is normal for physical and mental decline to become accentuated, according to the law of life.
In other words: although each person is a world apart, the problem with retiring later than 67 years of age, as is beginning to be proposed, is that, on average, Spaniards (according to the average of all ages) begin to be worn out. at 66.3 years old.
If retirement were at the age of 68 (let alone at 72), the situation would be much worse. In the best of cases, if the person in question were lucky enough to reach half a century of life in good health (something that, in statistical terms, is not common) they would only be able to enjoy around three and a half years free of physical or mental limitations, since the downhill slope begins at 71.4 years of age for men and at 71.6 for women.
From this evidence, the path forks in two directions. On the one hand, there are those who propose delaying the retirement age using two arguments. The first is economic: strengthening the public pension system. The second reason is health: delaying retirement is associated with a lower risk of death. Several investigations suggest, for example, that the decrease in physical activity and the fewer social interactions that come with leaving working life are largely responsible for the decline after retirement.
However, these investigations do not tell the whole truth. While some people stay fit by working late into the night in areas related to knowledge (teachers are the book example), other more physically demanding or precarious jobs take their toll on health at much younger ages.
There are manual jobs (such as, for example, agriculture or any occupation with a marked physical component), which in their early sixties can no longer be performed with the same vigor due to muscle and bone disorders caused by performing repeated movements along of many years, bending the torso or handling heavy loads. In these types of occupations, retiring as soon as possible can significantly improve health.
“If you leave a job that harms you physically, where you sleep badly and are constantly stressed, retirement is great for your health,” Lisa Renzi-Hammond, director of the Institute of Gerontology at the University of Georgia, admitted in The New York Times. (USA.)
In relation to statistics, an old joke explains that if one person eats two chickens and another none, statistics will consider that, on average, each person has eaten one chicken. Without going to these extremes, statistics on life expectancy also use a broad brush. According to Alejo Rodríguez-Fraticelli, doctor at the Institute For Research In Medicine of Barcelona (IRB), “when we talk about life expectancy we refer to statistical averages, but we do not consider distributions.”
“The reality,” this ICREA professor continues, “is that we are not a number: life expectancy is an average that means that, from an average age, half of the people will remain alive, while the other half will have died before.”
“The majority of the population begins to have health problems in their sixties or seventies, depending on their habits, their access to the health system, the type of education they have received, etc.,” explains this specialist in anti-aging blood, one of the most promising lines of research currently available to reverse metabolic aging.
“But within any average there is a lot of heterogeneity. For example, in the neighborhood where I lived in Boston (USA) there was a life expectancy of 90 years, but just by crossing three streets it was reduced to 66 years, similar to that of Kenya," says this cellular biologist, recalling the time spent at Boston Children's Hospital.
“Although setting a retirement age that is the same for everyone seems to make people more compliant, the ideal would be to tread more finely,” he suggests.
In practice, life expectancy and health expectancy vary considerably depending on sex (whether one is a man or woman) or ethnicity. In the US, for example, African Americans develop diseases at younger ages, live longer with disabilities, and die younger. The same happens with those who have a precarious income or a low level of education, since this has an impact on their attitude towards health: with better education, patients, in addition to getting sick less, have greater adherence to treatments and therapeutic guidelines.
However, personalizing retirement taking these issues into account seems like a chimera, despite the fact that scientific tools are beginning to exist to determine biological age (the result of having lived chronological age in a certain way). “The key – considers Rodríguez-Fraticelli – is when and how much we can predict our death. Today we already have epigenetic clocks that offer clues in this regard. The question is whether, if necessary, we would want to know the result and know at what age, predictably, we will die,” says Rodríguez-Fraticelli.
“But for the retirement age to be more customizable, large-scale research and experiments would have to be promoted previously. Now, these studies are very expensive,” he admits.
Ultimately, it would be about making the retirement date as fair as possible and not only depending on the life expectancy of the population in general, but of each person in particular. “This may be the horizon that lies ahead of us and one of the challenges to which we must respond,” says this scientist. To have this information, large-scale research and trials would have to be carried out previously, which would entail, today, a high economic cost.
Finally, there is another issue that is not talked about enough: after working for 37 or 38 years... what do we deserve? Should we work for a few more years or retire earlier and enjoy some wonderful years of good health? In Spain, France, Italy and other places, the vast majority continue to choose this option.
