It’s perhaps no great surprise to learn that income and social status have an impact on life expectancy, but nonetheless, a new study from the Max Planck Institute of Demographic Research provides some fascinating insight into the impact retirement pay has on life expectancy in old age.

It finds that unusually low retirement pay can knock five years from the life expectancy of retirees, with the gap between richest and poorest (in life expectancy terms) growing significantly in the past 20 years.  The data reveals that 65-year old men with a high level of retirement income can typically live for another 19 years.  This falls to just 15 years for those with lower levels of retirement income, and the gap has nearly doubled since 1997.

Unequal life expectancy

Life expectancy in Germany has risen across society since 1997, but the gains have been significantly lower for the lowest income groups.  This change was particularly prominent in the former East Germany, where the proportion of men in the lowest income group doubled between 2005 and 2016.

The authors were able to pull on data from the German Pension Fund, which contains information on the remaining years of life after someone retires, together with their pension entitlement points that determine the level of pension payment they receive.

Despite having this data available, it’s far from straightforward to analyze it, and so studies on life expectancy and social factors are fairly rare in Germany.  The research, which is arguably the first of its kind, found that the number of pensioners in each group barely changed between 2005 and 2016 in West Germany, but the lowest income group grew from 20% of pensioners in East Germany in 2005 to 36% in 2016.

“East German men aged 65 and over lose one potential year of life that they would have gained if the population’s socioeconomic structure had not changed,” the researchers explain.

The small pension payments of certain German retirees not only meant low income levels in retirement, but they also reflected an irregular working life, sprinkled with prolonged periods of either poorly paid work or unemployment.

Joblessness is well known to contribute to health issues, and whilst rising pension payments may help to an extent, they can’t remove the health burden from these past periods of low incomes and joblessness that have an impact into retirement.  The findings underline the difficulties in ensuring our generally ageing societies manage to enjoy the premium of this longevity rather than a curse of more years of general ill health.