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Elderly gentleman painting a wall at the Leipzig Trade Fair
Photo: Jan Woitas / picture alliance / dpa
Long past retirement age – and still being employed: this is the case for more and more people in Germany.
The number of people in work aged 67 or older rose to 1.05 million last year, according to a response from the federal government to a query from the Left parliamentary group, reported by the editorial network Germany (RND).
According to this, 217,000 people aged 67 and over were employed subject to social security contributions, i.e. had a regular part-time or full-time job.
Far more, namely 835,000, had marginal employment, i.e. a mini job.
Because the sum is larger than the total number of employees of this age, tens of thousands are likely to have a mini-job in addition to employment subject to social security contributions.
According to the report, the numbers have increased significantly in recent years.
In 2010, around 685,000 people aged 67 and over were still in employment, in 2015 there were almost 792,000 and in 2018 a good 968,000.
The reason for the increasing number of employees of retirement age is disputed.
The left-wing member of the Bundestag Sören Pellmann sees this as proof that the pension is not enough to live on for more and more people and speaks to the RND of a "sad development".
However, this interpretation is contradicted by empirical data.
According to an evaluation by the employer-related Institute of the German Economy (IW Köln), the proportion of academics among employed people of retirement age is 37 percent, well above the average of 27 percent.
In addition, motives such as "fun at work" or "contact with other people" played a greater role in surveys than remuneration.
Last but not least, households with employed pensioners consistently had higher incomes than households with non-employed pensioners.
fdi
