This report compares the financial wellness of Generation X to the preceding generation, Baby Boomers and the following generation Millennials. It explores the risks they face in later life and how policy, industry and employer interventions could mitigate these risks.

The working lives of men and women are almost equally long, but women still get lower old-age pensions than men. The problem lies in women’s lower wages and their work history. Extending working lives alone will not fix the gender gap in pensions, researchers at the Finnish Centre for Pensions argue.

Despite recent efforts to equalize the treatment of men and women in the pension system design in many countries, the gender gap in pensions persists. This gap contributes to old-age income inequality in Europe and beyond.

In recent years in Finland, the extension of working life and the future sustainability of public-sector finances have been topics of extensive discussion. The EU Commission has encouraged Finland to consider linking the retirement age to the extending life expectancy. After the 2005 pension reform, changes in life expectancy were taken into account in the form of a life expectancy coefficient that regulates pension levels.

Using data from a stated preferences experiment in the Netherlands, we find that replacing full-time pension schemes with schemes that offer gradual retirement opportunities induce workers to retire one year later on average.

The largest gender gap in pensions are to be found in the Netherlands, where the difference between male and female pensions is almost 50 per cent. The gender imbalance is the smallest in Estonia. Finland is in the middle category compared to other Member States.

Using data from a stated preferences experiment in the Netherlands, we find that replacing fulltime pension schemes with schemes that offer gradual retirement opportunities induce workers to retire one year later on average. Total life-time labour supply, however, decreases with 3.4 months because the positive effect of delayed retirement on labour supply is cancelled out by the reduction in working hours before full retirement.