The labour potential of pensioners and claimants of early retirement benefits

Over the next decades Denmark’s population will age and there will be fewer people in the labour market. This report examines what can be done to counter this trend by encouraging more pensioners and claimants of early retirement benefits to work. The report deals in particular with the potential for returning to the labour market, i.e. returning to work after a period of not working and having claimed the state retirement pension or early retirement benefits.
Focus is on 65-75 year-olds, and claimants of early retirement benefits and disability pensions. The report examines how these groups are currently attached to the labour market and whether they wish to work in the future. Moreover, the report also examines what motivates these groups to retain their attachment to the labour market and what serves as a barrier for this attachment.
It also reveals that approximately 93,600 individuals in the group examined in the study do work, and that at least another 41,000 individuals would like to do so. According to the report, one barrier seems to be a preconception, shared by the elderly themselves and workplaces, that there is no room in the labour market for claimants of state retirement pension or early retirement benefits.
The study has been commissioned and financed by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration.