t: Manual workers Civil servants have a longer life expectancy than manual workers

Hard jobs in construction or in maintenance put pressure on life expectancy.

This is shown by a study by the DIW.

According to this, civil servants and employees live significantly longer than manual workers or caregivers.

Berlin - Many Germans look forward to retirement long before it is actually in sight. But how long you can enjoy your pension * depends on various factors. As the social association VdK announced on Monday (August 16) in Berlin, people in jobs with high stress have a significantly lower life expectancy and thus a shorter retirement. Demands for a higher retirement age are therefore "not fair".

Especially those who work in logistics, care for the elderly or in construction are exposed to a high level of occupational stress.

According to Association President Verena Bentele, this has a significant impact on life expectancy.

She referred to a study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), which was carried out on behalf of the social association.

On average, pensioners from occupational groups with high stress lived three years shorter than those in whom the stress was lower.

Pension: Civil servants draw a pension for significantly longer than salaried employees and blue-collar workers

The differences are particularly serious for men.

According to the study, male civil servants live an average of four years longer than their peers.

As a civil servant who reaches the age of 65, you can expect an average of 21.5 years of retirement.

For comparison: employees and the self-employed can look back on 19 years of retirement.

The difference to blue collar workers is particularly pronounced: they have an average of 15.9 years to live after retirement, 56 years less than civil servants.

For women, the differences are less serious.

According to the DIW study, female workers “only” have around three years less life than civil servants.

VdK: Uniform pension insurance instead of social division

So those who work hard and physically have a shorter life expectancy and receive a pension for a shorter period of time. The VdK therefore calls for a deduction-free pension of 63 for certain occupational groups with high physical stress. Because, as the DIW figures show, high earners in physically less demanding occupations in particular benefit from high and long pension payments. People in the lowest income group have an average life expectancy of 82.6 years, while the highest income group lives an average of five years longer.

The VdK therefore rejects proposals to increase the retirement age to stabilize the pension fund. According to Bentele, this would “further exacerbate the social divide in the older population and lead to even more poverty in old age.” You need “a pension insurance that everyone in employment pays into: workers, employees, self-employed, and politicians and civil servants.” Just leave it that way the pension system will stabilize in the long term and fight social division.