Early retirement pension last year, 643 thousand people received in the Czech Republic. That’s almost 27 percent of all old-age pensioners. It follows from a new publication on Social Security for 2019, issued by the Czech Statistical Office (CSO).
“The proportion of premature old-age pensions in our country it is growing every year. Ten years ago, they represented only 19 percent of all old-age pensions, “says Markéta Pištorová from the CZSO’s Department of Development Statistics.
When retiring early, provided fulfillment of the mandatory insurance periodbut not achieved retirement age, there is a permanent reduction in the percentage of the pension.
“The monthly amount of early retirement pension in December 2019 reached an average of 12,261 crowns, ie more than two thousand crowns less than the average amount of regular old-age pension,” Pištorová points out.
Even so, some people may early retirement pay off. Report of the Ministry of Labor on pension insurance for 2014 (specifically in the section from page 43) says that almost half of people pay early retirement. This is due to the fact that they start receiving the pension earlier, albeit a reduced one, and in general they take more from it until death than they would have taken when receiving a regular old-age pension. According to this study, going to early retirement is beneficial especially for people with low earnings and also for those who no longer have a job.
The lowest share of early retirement pensions was in Prague last year (14%), and it was also below average in the Central Bohemian and South Moravian regions (23% and 25%, respectively). On the contrary, the maximum share of early old-age pensions was in the Vysočina region (34%), more than 30% was then in the Pardubice, Moravian-Silesian and Olomouc regions.
As well as among the recipients of all old-age pensions, there are more women than men among the recipients of early old-age pensions, which is generally due to the higher number of women in the senior population. However, the relative proportion of men receiving early retirement is higher.
“Of the men receiving an old-age pension, 29% have an early one, compared to women, of whom 25% are among old-age pensioners,” says Helena Chodounská, head of the CZSO’s Department of Education, Health Care, Culture and Social Security.
