As early as 1996, the federal government got down to tackling a major reform of the pensions regime for employees and the self-employed, by gradually raising the statutory retirement age for women, from 60 years at the beginning of 1997 to 65 on 1 January 2009.
By then, it will be the same as the legal retirement age for men, which is helping to bring down the cost of population ageing. More women staying on in the labour force has also helped push up the employment rate among 55 to 64 year-olds, a rate which rose from 26 p.c. in 2000 to 32 p.c.