Without discarding the issue of the moving goalpost, I do wonder what the quality of life contrast looks like between a 70-year old in 2025 and a 70-year old in 1925. Note: I arbitrarily picked the latter date, as I wasn't able to (with a quick search) locate the year in which the original retirement age was established in Denmark. I also wonder what it would look like for the government to encourage (or even facilit…
around 1900 more than a quarter of the population of Denmark emigrated to the USA IIR
Why do people owe me a nice retirement? I never really got the idea of state-funded retirement. Perhaps I should feel I'm owed something if I'm too fragile/disabled to work, but I don't know why age alone should grant me anything?
Appreciate this is a controversial view so interested in hearing why I'm wrong so I can stop holding it. I think retirement should just be replaced by disability welfare to be honest.
Living in Copenhagen for the last 7 years. - housing for 80k USD is 525k DKK: no way you can find anything at that price anywhere close to cph. Not sure for other "major" cities, but in cph you can expect to pay 4mil DKK (600K USD) for a ~60 sqmt apartment, prices will fall outside the cities, but nowhere close to 80k USD. Where did you get that number? - you pay for your unemployment benefit, thought an a-kasse. Its…
That is why I explicitly said major cities and not Copenhagen. Look 20 minutes out of Odense, Aalborg, Randers, etc. Don't let yourself believe that a country is nothing but its capital - it is correct, that if you decide to live in a 4mil DKK apartment in the Copenhagen area, then you have also opted out of public help, and you are on your own.
Cph is one of the major cities, and the biggest one. It's also the area with most population density and opportunities. I won't say that you are wrong because I'm not familiar with what you can find 20 min of Aalborg, etc, but I find disingeneus portraing a picture where in dk you can buy a house for 80k USD and leaving out the information that you are probably in the middle of nowhere - no jobs, no public transport, no services. It's not that people "decide" to live in cph or in a major city, they are basically forced to if they need to have a job and do stuff. Sure, if you work remote and like being in the countryside alone you have a lot of options, most people don't have that luxury.
It is. And this is the case in all western countries. It is just being realized in different ways. Fundamentalle there are 3 ways to cope 1. reduce pensions 2. Raise taxes 3. Decrease amount of benefit receivers. Denmark choose number 3
No 4 - do like Norway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...
Not everyone sits on a bazillion tons of natural gas and oil. Also, there are 5.5 million people in Norway. Though, Denmark is almost the same population, they have no bazillion tons of oil and natural gas. See the problem?
Without discarding the issue of the moving goalpost, I do wonder what the quality of life contrast looks like between a 70-year old in 2025 and a 70-year old in 1925. Note: I arbitrarily picked the latter date, as I wasn't able to (with a quick search) locate the year in which the original retirement age was established in Denmark. I also wonder what it would look like for the government to encourage (or even facilit…
around 1900 more than a quarter of the population of Denmark emigrated to the USA IIR
There is an obvious solution to the problem of ageing population and declining birth rates. Furthermore, it's a solution everybody's secret soul wants very much: keep people younger for longer. Invent rejuvenation. But politicians would never dare go in front of cameras and say that they will put a dollar into R&D for such an outcome, because the wall of insults and disdain we would hurl, for no rational reason, at them, would be higher than a tsunami. There is something seriously broken in our collective psyche.
So since 1950, lifespan has gone up ~14 years in UK. Retirement age has not gone up since it was created in 1940s. Not crazy to raise it a little. Quickly looking at Denmark articles, it seems they’re raising the age to adjust to life expectancy increases as well. I don’t see this a sign of the system failing.
We are not living longer, fewer infants / kids are dying.
True. The interesting stat would be expected lifetime at retirement age.
So this means that eventually Danes will not be able to draw from their government pensions until the age of seventy? Is there a mechanism where people can stop working before age seventy if they save privately?
around 1900 more than a quarter of the population of Denmark emigrated to the USA IIR
Around 140k emigrated to USA in 1900-1930 ( https://danishvoices.ku.dk/danish-in-north-america/ ) Denmark’s population was 2.4m-3.5m in that period ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Denmark )
my sources : "a History of the Lutheran Church in America", and a personal history written at that time. If your records are accurate and unbiased, I would accept that answer completely and admit it.. but I am not convinced both of those are true. It is interesting and more clarity is welcome. Also your estimate of the population varies by 40% so the accuracy is in question.