The pensions burden | The Economist

 Falling short: People are living longer so they need to retire later and save more  

First the good news. In most countries we're living longer. In particular those people who reach 65 years old can enjoy 6 more years of life than their counterparts did 40 years ago. Europeans have overtaken Americans.  

But when we stop working we depend on the efforts of younger generations. That's a problem since the next generation is smaller than the baby boomers. The number of workers for each retiree dubbed the support ratio has already fallen and is set to deteriorate further.   

If we live longer surely we could work longer but official retirement ages have not kept pace with longevity and vert sharply from country to country. Compare France with Japan. Worse still, many workers retire early. Their effective retirement age is lower than the official one.