Half of Swiss see themselves working beyond retirement age

For some pensioners, it's not all rest and relaxation. Keystone / Sebastian Kahnert

Around half of all respondents to a survey by the Swiss Life insurance group said they could imagine continuing to work after retiring. Around a third said this was already the case.

The report, which surveyed 1,472 respondents aged between 55 and 70, also found that men are more likely to be working beyond their retirement – one-third of male respondents said this was the case, compared with one-quarter of women.

Of those who either do work beyond retirement or envision doing so, around a quarter said that financial pressures were the deciding factor, the report said.

Calculated across the population, the numbers mean that in 2019 some 190,000 people were working into their retirement. This marks an increase of 75% since the turn of the century, according to official data from the Federal Statistical OfficeExternal link.

The vast majority of respondents to the Swiss life survey said that working after retirement – unless forced on them by circumstances or need – was only something they would do under certain conditions, such as good health, a good work atmosphere, and an appreciation for their employer.

The most common retirees to keep working were self-employed, farmers, freelancers, and managers. The least likely were administrative employees, labourers or craftspeople, retail workers and carers.

In Switzerland, the official retirement age is 65 for men and 64 for women. Moves are also in the works to raise the retirement age for the latter, although efforts to reform the country’s pension system are invariably subject to debate; in the past decades, two separate proposals to reform the system were rejected by voters at the ballot box.

The government says that the current situation, what with an ageing population, can only guarantee basic pension payments up to 2030.