This threatens the sustainability of the pay-as-you-go financed European public pension schemes. Germany and the UK have recently announced a gradual increase in the statutory pension age to 67 and 68 respectively. Other European countries should also increase retirement ages in response to longevity developments if they want to keep a sound public pension scheme.
Given the prospect of dramatically increasing old-age dependency ratios, it is now definitely time to act. Moreover, gradual adjustments in the pension ages are much easier to deal with than large increases at once.