The statutory retirement age, life expectancy, years without limitation and the ability to manage a particular shift are different figures. The calendar threshold can rise without healthy life years or functional capacity in a strenuous occupation rising in step. A later standard pension can moreover show up in early pensions, disability or a change of job.
What we know: The statutory retirement age, life expectancy, Healthy Life Years, disability and a recognised occupational disease are different indicators and different legal regimes. HLY is a population estimate of years without limitation of usual activities; it is not a test of the ability to perform a particular occupation. When assessing disability, education, experience, knowledge and previous work are established alongside medical findings.[6][7][21]
What we do not know: From population HLY it is not possible to determine whether a particular person will manage a particular shift until 67. The article also does not model how many people a change of age would move into a disability or early pension. An individual entitlement must be assessed by the competent institution from the concrete file.
1. The calendar and the joints are not the same
Imagine a meeting on the retirement age. The finance minister points to population ageing and says that without longer work the deficit will not hold. An official of the Czech Social Security Administration puts on the table a table of birth cohorts and 67 years for those born after 1988. An occupational-medicine physician talks about knees, discs and night shifts. A construction foreman, who is not in the room, would say that at 63 a ladder is no longer the same as at 35. An economist from the National Budget Council recalls that the 2024 reform improves the system balance by percentage points of GDP. An IT-firm personnel officer objects that his seniors want to stay — and that they enjoy the work.
At first glance this is a dispute about 65 versus 67. In reality each describes a different object. The minister measures fiscal sustainability. The ČSSZ measures entitlement by the calendar and the insurance period. The physician measures wear. The foreman measures the shift he can still manage. The economist measures the balance. The personnel officer measures demand for cognitive office work.
The debate thus joins fiscal sustainability, legal entitlement, health and labour-market options into a single number. Shifting the threshold may improve the system projection, but without further data it does not say how it will fall on a person in a particular occupation or region.
First it is necessary to determine whether we are assessing the balance, length of life, functional limitation, or the ability to perform particular work. A mortality table, an accounting balance and a disability assessment are not interchangeable.
The calendar is not the body. The average is not the worker. And life expectancy is not healthy life years.
— Jiný Kontext
2. From the statutory age to actual departure
When “67 years” appears in the law, it is easy to form the impression that it is one thing: the day a person leaves work. The result, however, arises in a chain. Each layer can soften the threshold, tighten it or merely shift it onto another benefit. Two people with the same date of birth therefore need not leave in the same way. The same person at 64 may find themselves in an old-age pension, in disability, or still on the shift — according to the job, health and the rules of reduction.
Five layers of one threshold
- Statutory age: the calendar by cohort and, for older women, also by the number of children. For those born after 1988 it is 67 years; according to the ČSSZ this threshold is reached in 2056.[1][3]
- Life expectancy: how many years remain if current mortality is maintained. At age 65 Czech men in 2023 had 16.7 years ahead of them, women 20.4 years. That is length of life, not a description of health.[4]
- Healthy life years (HLY): years without long-term limitation of activity according to GALI. At 65 in 2022 — the last pairing with life expectancy of the same year — 7.1 years for men and 7.7 years for women. It is not a share of the 16.7 years of 2023.[6]
- Occupational wear: the cumulative load of the occupation, shifts and environment. Recognition of an occupational disease, assessment of disability and special pension rules for some occupations are three distinct paths with different conditions.[14][20][21]
- The labour market and substitute channels: whether a lighter job, retraining, an early old-age pension or a disability pension exists. The 67-year threshold often does not play out in practice at work, but in another column of the payment statistics.[9][10]
The statutory age determines an important part of the entitlement, but it is not the only actor. A person may meet the age and not meet the insurance period. They may not meet the age and leave early with a permanent reduction. They may leave into disability a decade earlier. They may stay because the work is light and in demand. An honest comparison must state not only the number 67, but also the cohort, sex, insurance period, the health indicator and whether we are talking about entitlement or actual departure.
This is not a dispute about the calendar. The cut of layers determines where to turn when there is a failure. If people leave at 61, the labour market, health, or a rule that rewards departure may have failed. If at 67 they still work, the occupation, health, or the lack of another choice may have won. The sentence “we have shifted the retirement age” is the start of a diagnosis, not its end.
Illustrative scheme: The same date of birth can, in a different job, with a different HLY and a different assessment, produce a different departure. The calendar is only the first layer of the chain.
3. Where a uniform age creates different costs
The same shift of the statutory age can have a different impact according to occupation and health. A person in work they still manage can use a later departure differently from a worker with arthrosis of the knees in a strenuous job. The reduction of an early pension can be quantified, while worsened health need not be reversible.
The National Budget Council stated in 2025 that the sum of the so-called small and large pension reforms reduces, in the worst period, the deficit of the pension system by roughly two percentage points of GDP; without the reform measures the same projection would reach almost 4 % of GDP, with the reforms to the 1.5 % of GDP mark. That is a fiscal map. It is not a map of bodies that at 64 have to last another three years.[13][22]
| Type of failure | What it looks like | How to test it | What limits the harm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swap of indicators | Life expectancy is read as proof that work at 67 is healthy | Separate the year, population and definition of HLY from the mortality table | Publish both indicators side by side as a duty |
| Average instead of spread | A parameter for the “average insured person” lands on a heavy occupation | Break down departures by industry, region and disability | An earlier entitlement or adjustment of work without a blanket sermon |
| A damper instead of reform | Early and disability pensions hide that the threshold is unreachable for some people | Track the share of early and disability pensions among new departures | Measure the actual age of departure, not only the statutory one |
| Institutional shortcut | People leave because the system rewards a threshold, not because the body failed | Separate health, unemployment and entitlement rules | Test whether a later age changes the job, or only the benefit |
That also changes the question. We do not ask only which age will balance the books. We ask which age will fail in a way the system will catch. The state can accept that some people work after 67 because they want to. With a change of threshold, however, it must watch whether departure into reduced early and disability pensions is not rising. How many people such a shift would concern, this article does not determine without a model.
Besides the fiscal result it is therefore necessary to track the actual age of departure, occupation, region, health and shifts into early or disability pensions. Without these data it is not possible to find out whether work has been prolonged, or only the type of benefit has changed.
4. Life expectancy does not describe working capacity
Life expectancy is needed because it replaces part of impressions with a repeatable calculation from mortality. The problem arises at the moment when one number begins to stand for the whole ability to work. The ČSÚ calculates it as mean length of life if the mortality rates of the given year are maintained. Nothing in the definition says whether those years a person will spend on a building site, in an office, or in a waiting room.[4][5]
The figures most often cited in the debate do not come from the same year or from the same age. In 2025 life expectancy at birth according to the ČSÚ reached 77.5 years for men and 83.2 years for women. That is a figure about a newborn, not about a sixty-five-year-old. Men who turned 65 in 2023 had 16.7 years ahead of them, women 20.4 years. Regional spread is already visible here: in 2022–2023 life expectancy of 65-year-old men in Prague was 17.4 years and of women 21.1 years, while in the Ústí, Karlovy Vary and Moravian-Silesian regions it fell for men below 16 years and for women below 20 years.[4][5]
Five figures without which “we live longer, so we can work longer” is only an advertising sentence
- The exact age to which expectancy relates: birth, 65, or 80.
- The calendar year of the mortality tables.
- Sex and region, not only the nationwide average.
- Whether it is length of life, or years without limitation.
- Whether from a longer life there follows employer demand for a worker of 64–67 years.
For buying a parameter a small internal breakdown is therefore more important than a foreign overall ranking of countries. Thirty real paths of departure — with real occupations, Czech regions and real assessments — can say more than a thousand projections that do not see the body. Public life expectancy helps to choose the question. The decision must be made by work and health, not only by mortality.
5. HLY does not measure pain. It measures limitation in usual activities
Healthy Life Years are a different indicator from life expectancy. Eurostat composes them from mortality tables and from a question on long-term limitation of activity in the EU-SILC survey, the so-called GALI instrument. These are years that a person at a given age is to live without severe or moderate limitation in activities they usually do. It is not the number of years without pain, without a diagnosis, or without fatigue after a shift. It is a self-assessment of limitation, joined to mortality.[7][8]
The ČSÚ for 2022 — the last available pairing — reports: 65-year-old men had an expectancy of living in health a further 7.1 years and women 7.7 years. Life expectancy of the same year at the same age was 16.1 years for men and 19.8 years for women. The difference between the sexes is 0.6 years for HLY, 3.8 years for life expectancy. Most of the years by which women outstrip men are therefore not years without limitation.[6]
It does not follow that every man at 65 has exactly 7.1 healthy years ahead of him. It follows that the average remaining life at 65 is already for a large part not a life without limitation. The European Commission’s Country Health Profile for Czechia for 2022 adds a share: 44 % of remaining years for men and 39 % for women were to be lived without limitation, against 50 % and 44 % in the EU average. The share of people aged 65 and over rose from 14 % in 2000 to 20 % in 2023 and the projection states 28 % in 2050. That is demographic pressure on the system. It is not proof that HLY will grow at the same pace as the calendar.[17]
How to read HLY beside life expectancy
The first rule is temporal: do not add HLY from 2022 to life expectancy from 2023. The second is about age: HLY at 65 does not say how many healthy years remain at 67. One cannot mechanically subtract two calendar years from 7.1 and declare the remainder a certainty. The third is definitional: GALI measures limitation of activity, not a diagnosed illness and not the ability to perform a particular occupation. The fourth is comparative: an international table makes sense only when we cite all countries from the same series and the same year.
Anyone who skips these four points can from 16.7 years at age 65 create the impression that work until 67 is automatically manageable in health. HLY does not support such a conclusion: it is a population sum of expected years without limitation, not a queue of consecutive “healthy years” nor an assessment of an occupation. Biological tenability of particular work must therefore be decided by individual functional state, exposure and working conditions, not a mechanical subtraction of two years from HLY.[6][7]
6. The law shifts the age. The table is not the body
The Czech pension system is pay-as-you-go. Conditions of entitlement are set by Act No. 155/1995 Coll. From 1 January 2025 the ČSSZ publishes a new trajectory: the age rises gradually, the ceiling is 67 years. For insured persons born after 1988 the retirement age is 67 years. The minimum insurance period for an ordinary old-age pension remains 35 years; anyone who does not meet it, age by itself is not enough.[1][2][3]
| Year of birth | Men | Women without children | Women with 2 children |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | 64 years + 2 months | 64 years + 2 months | 62 years + 2 months |
| 1970 | 65 years + 5 months | 65 years + 5 months | 65 years + 5 months |
| 1989 and younger | 67 years | 67 years | 67 years |
Source: ČSSZ, table of retirement age after 1. 1. 2025. For the 1970 cohort women with five or more children still have 64 years and 2 months; for 1989 the threshold is uniform.[1]
The table is precise in what it measures: the calendar. It is not precise in what people put into the sentence “retirement age”. It does not say whether a job exists. It does not say whether the person is in the Ústí Region or in Prague. It does not say whether 35 years of insurance were accumulated in dust or at a screen. The OECD in Pensions at a Glance 2023 shows that states combine age, insurance period, early departures and minimum pensions differently; copying a single number from a neighbouring country without these layers is the same error as copying a price list without tax.[11]
The law also knows exceptions that the table of 67 years does not hide. For part of the work in deep mining a reduced age threshold applies under Government Regulation No. 363/2009 Coll. and related provisions. Since 1 January 2025, the Czech Social Security Administration also identifies earlier old-age retirement for selected work classified in risk category 4; eligibility depends on exposure classification and at least 2,200 eight-hour shifts, not on the job title alone. That is an admission that some occupations have a different biological account. The admission is narrow: a bricklayer, a nurse on the ward or a night warehouse worker are not automatically included.[2]
7. An early pension is a damper. It is not a choice of whim
As of 31 December 2024 the ČSSZ recorded 2 847 699 pensioners. It paid 2 356 453 old-age pensions, of which 762 483 early. Disability pensions 415 623. The ČSÚ for the same year adds a share: an early old-age pension was drawn by 32 % of recipients of full old-age pensions; in 2010 it was 19 %. Of men with an old-age pension 35 % had an early one, of women 31 %. Newly awarded early pensions in 2024 were only 4.6 thousand — substantially fewer than in the years when the potential of applicants was “drawn down”, especially in 2022.[9][10]
That is not a third of the population of Czechia. It is a third of old-age pensions and a large part of the payment machine. Anyone who makes of 762 483 proof that “everyone wants to leave earlier from comfort” overlooks the reduction, health and rules that in some years rewarded departure. Anyone who makes of the same number proof that “nobody can reach the statutory age” overlooks the institution.
The IDEA think-tank at CERGE-EI showed earlier on SHARE data that relatively early departures in Czechia cannot be attributed only to worse health of older generations. Health worsens with age, but departures copy statutory thresholds and employer expectations more strongly than a purely medical story would suffice. That does not refute wear in heavy occupations. It says that an early pension is a mixed channel: part health, part market, part rule. An audit that sees only one will see a false culprit.[18]
The reduction is moreover permanent. Departure before the age is not a free insurance policy. It is a discount on the lifelong award in exchange for the fact that the person cannot, or does not want to, or has nowhere to remain at work. If the statutory age shifts and the share of early pensions jumps again, the system “saves” on old-age payments and “pays extra” on reduced ones. The account moves. The body does not.
8. Disability is another channel of the same pressure
A disability pension in 2024 was drawn by 415.6 thousand persons, 6.3 % of inhabitants aged 18 to 64. Degree III 155 thousand, degree II 80 thousand, degree I 181 thousand. Year on year roughly four thousand recipients were added: degrees I and II grew, degree III fell by 1.4 thousand. The average age of a recipient moves around 50 years. With age the share in the population rises.[10]
Disability is not the same as an early old-age pension nor recognition of an occupational disease. A long-term unfavourable health state and a decline in working capacity are assessed, not whether the diagnosis is on the list of occupational diseases. The ČSSZ occupational questionnaire documents attained education, experience, knowledge and previous gainful activities; a working past therefore has its place in the file.[21] From that, however, it cannot be inferred that the assessment captures every cumulative load perfectly.
It does not follow that every disability at 55 is a failure of the retirement age. It follows that actual departure from the labour market happens by more than one path — at the standard old-age age, early, or through disability — and that evaluating only one of them gives an incomplete picture. A higher statutory age by itself does not yet prove longer actual working activity.
9. Heavy work wears joints before the table arrives
The national register of occupational diseases for 2024 recorded 5 290 occupational illnesses in 4 530 persons. Among physical causes carpal-tunnel syndrome from overuse still leads (106 cases), from vibration (79) and diseases of tendons and joints from one-sided overuse (101). For the first time a chronic disease of the lumbar spine from heavy physical work was recognised, in a construction worker; the item has been on the list since 1 January 2023 and dozens of further cases were under assessment. Incidence 108.7 per 100 thousand sickness-insured employees.[14]
This is not a map of all wear. It is a map of what the state has recognised as an occupational disease. Criteria for a chronic disease of the lumbar spine include a neurological and radiological finding, at least three years of the relevant risk work, incapacity for work totalling at least 12 months during the last three years and a hygiene verification of the load on disc L4/L5; they must be met at the same time.[20] Failure to meet the criteria for an occupational disease does not by itself mean that the person has no health limitation or cannot apply for an assessment of disability — it is a different procedure.
Eurofound in surveys of working conditions has long shown that physically demanding work, quiet positions, lifting and repetitive movements are held unevenly in Europe in construction, agriculture, transport and part of services. The survey does not measure Czech disability. It measures that load is not an accident of fate, but a property of the place. Ergonomics can reduce load. It does not promise that forty years on the knees will at 67 be the same as forty years at a keyboard.[19][12]
What needs to be tested in strenuous work
The first test concerns the unit. Are we measuring the occupation, or actual exposure — kilograms, shifts, cold, vibration? The second concerns time: wear is cumulative, the assessment is one-off. The third concerns replacement: is there a lighter job in the firm, or is the only path a benefit? A pilot that sees only average HLY does not see the bricklayer. A pilot that sees only the bricklayer does not see that part of departures is pulled by the system threshold, not the disc.
10. A shift is not the same as a day. Night changes another axis
Physical strength is not the only account. Work at night and in rotating shifts reaches the circadian rhythm, sleep, metabolism and vascular risk. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classified night shift work as “probably carcinogenic to humans” (group 2A) on the basis of limited evidence in humans, sufficient in animals and strong mechanistic data. That is a classification of hazard, not a Czech percentage of disability.[15]
The American NIOSH in training material for nurses cites the Nurses’ Health Study: with rotating night shifts of at least three nights a month the risk of type 2 diabetes rose with length of exposure. At 3 to 9 years by 20 %, at 10 to 19 years by 40 %, at 20 or more years by 58 %; part of the association went through a rise in BMI. A meta-analysis by Gan and colleagues, which NIOSH also reports, found a higher risk in rotating schedules than in other types of shift. That is diabetes in one cohort of nurses, not a summary “heart, diabetes and cognition by 40 % after twenty years” for all fields. The precise number belongs to the precise population.[16]
For the retirement age a narrow sentence follows. Night operation is not measured by the calendar. It is measured by the hours when the body sleeps. A nurse on the ward at 64 may have different joints from a bricklayer and still different vessels and different sleep from an analyst on home office. One threshold of 67 years merges both occupations. The shift does not merge them.
11. The same statutory age, different HLY
Comparing retirement age between states without HLY is a false parallel. Comparing HLY without year and definition is a second. Destatis takes Eurostat and for 2023 reports healthy years at 65 as follows: Czechia 7.4 years for men and 7.8 for women, Germany 8.4 and 9.0, France 10.5 and 12.0, Sweden 13.5 and 14.3, average EU-27 9.2 and 9.6. That is a series of the same indicator in the same year. It is not a series of statutory ages.[7][8]
| Country (HLY at 65, 2023) | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| Czechia | 7.4 | 7.8 |
| Germany | 8.4 | 9.0 |
| France | 10.5 | 12.0 |
| Sweden | 13.5 | 14.3 |
| EU-27 | 9.2 | 9.6 |
Source: Destatis according to Eurostat, as of 28 April 2026; HLY at 65, not the statutory retirement age.[8]
The Czech 7.1 and 7.7 from the ČSÚ belong to 2022 and to pairing with the then life expectancy. They must not be inserted into the 2023 table as if it were the same measurement. In the series for 2023 Swedish and French 65-year-olds come out on average with more HLY than Czech ones.[8] Even this difference, however, does not determine an individual’s working capacity nor a suitable statutory age; it is only population context for comparison. The OECD in Health at a Glance 2023 generally recalls that not all added years of life are years without limitation.[12]
The statutory age in France and in Sweden moreover moves over time and has different exceptions. A row “62–64” or “63–66” from popular tables is not HLY. It is another layer. Comparison makes sense when we keep both layers separate.
12. Two insured persons, the same contributions, a different organism
An illustration, not a report. Jiří, 63 years, construction worker. A lifetime of dust, cold, loads. Arthrosis of the knees, pain in the loins. The employer has no lighter post. Until 67, which his cohort does not yet see, but which already shapes the debate about younger people, he would have to either last, or apply for a reduced early pension, or for disability. Pavel, 63 years, IT consultant. Office, home office, cognitive work. At 67 he plans a reduced hours contract, because he enjoys the work and his knees do not prevent it.
Both paid the same percentage of insurance. The system sees them as two cohorts. The body sees them as two exposures. Justice that knows only age is justice of the calendar. It is not justice of wear. It does not follow that Pavel should work longer “for Jiří”. It follows that one threshold without a second channel — adjustment of work, an earlier entitlement for measured load, an assessment that can handle accumulation — punishes Jiří twice: in the body and in the award.
The IDEA think-tank would add to this illustration a reservation that belongs in the text, not in a footnote: not every departure at 63 is Jiří. Part of the Pavels will leave because the system threshold can do it, even if the body still suffices. A policy that sees only Jiří will lower the age across the board and burden the account. A policy that sees only Pavel will raise the age across the board and send Jiří into the damper. An honest test needs both.[18]
13. What the table leaves for assessment elsewhere
Before the reform the reader checked whether “we are ageing”. With HLY they check something more complicated: whether the source speaks of birth or of 65 years, whether of mortality or of limitation, whether of 2022 or 2025, whether of men in Prague or in Ústí. The number is navigation towards evidence. It is not automatic proof that work until 67 is tenable.
One sentence can combine three true figures into an untrue conclusion. First: life expectancy at birth 77.5 years. Second: at 65 years 16.7 years. Third: HLY 7.1 years. Each figure has a source. The synthesis “so at 67 four healthy years remain” already has no source, because HLY at 67 is not given by the public table and the years must not be mixed.[5][6]
Four-step check of a pension number
- Existence: the link leads to the ČSÚ, Eurostat, the ČSSZ or the law, not to a newspaper summary.
- Unit: persons, pensions, years of life, years without limitation, a percentage of pensioners — not “people”.
- Support: the passage really bears the sentence to which it is attached.
- Scope: age, year, sex, region and whether it is entitlement or a payment fit.
The most reliable working procedure separates searching from writing the law. First a table of claims, primary sources and limitations. Only then the parameter. For every figure the population, period and what it does not measure are recorded. If the source cannot be opened, the claim is not promoted to a fact merely because it fits well into a press release.
14. The price of a parameter is not the price of a result
The market in reforms uses several price languages at once. One is the balance of the pension account in per cent of GDP. The second is the award of a reduced pension. The third is a disability benefit. The fourth is health care and lost productivity. A direct comparison “67 years will save X” without these columns misleads.
The NRR estimates that raising the retirement age itself improves the balance by up to 2.1 % of GDP; lower crediting of earnings by up to 0.8 % of GDP and lower indexation around 0.5 % of GDP. The study is interested in which generations will “pay” for the reform: especially cohorts from the mid-70s and younger. That is an intergenerational account. It is not an account of the disc.[22]
A cheap parameter can be excellent if people really stay at work. The same parameter can be expensive if they leave through disability or early. An earlier entitlement for measured load can be unnecessary for a consultant and cheaper for a bricklayer if it reduces assessments and reductions that another chapter would otherwise pay.
The real price of an accepted parameter
System balance + reduced awards + disability + health care + a lost shift + trust that the rule is still a contract, not a lottery of the body.
The result is cheap only when people stay at work and the system can see it. Otherwise we have bought a number in a table and paid for a damper.
15. What to test before the age is shifted
A reasonable choice does not begin with the slogan 65 or 67, but with the kind of work and the control mechanism. The following signpost is not a ranking of ideologies. It is a first pilot. For each row it makes sense to take two indicators and compare them on the same data, in the same year and with the same definition.
| Need | First test | Decisive figure | Unacceptable shortcut |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sustainability of the account | NRR and ČSSZ projections | Balance and age of actual departure, not only statutory | “67 years will solve the deficit” |
| Healthy years | HLY and life expectancy in the same year and age | Share of years without limitation, regional spread | Reading 16.7 years as 16.7 years in health |
| Heavy occupation | Register of occupational diseases + disability by industry | Exposure, not only the job title | A blanket age instead of measured load |
| Night operation | Length and type of shifts, not a slogan about flexibility | A health axis besides joints | Claiming that sedentary work is without risk |
| Early departures | The 32 % share and new awards | Separate health, the rule and the market | “Everyone leaves from comfort” |
| Fairness of cohorts | ČSSZ table 1960 / 1970 / 1989 | 35 years of insurance and exceptions | Copying a foreign age without the foreign HLY |
For Czech use a separate test is necessary. Swedish HLY will not measure a 65-year-old man in Ústí. The German statutory age will not measure a Czech degree-I assessment. The test set should contain region, industry, early and disability channels and a text in which the correct answer is “this number does not measure health”.
Some systems in the end need more than one threshold. One calendar, a second by measured load, a third by assessment. That is not a failure of uniformity. It is the same decision as having a different speed in a municipality and on a motorway. The condition is that the division is intelligible, data do not pass into guesses and people know where final authority arises.
Before a decision on the next month in the table
- Separate life expectancy at birth, at 65 and HLY of the same year.
- Publish the share of early and disability pensions among new departures, not only the statutory age.
- For strenuous work ask about exposure and a replacement post, not only the name of the occupation.
- For night work do not use a percentage from one foreign cohort as a Czech justification.
- Set a date when the parameter will be opened again, because HLY and mortality move.
16. A short audit that says more than the average
A choice can be made without a decade-long dispute and without an impulse from a press conference. A short, disciplined audit is enough. Its aim is not to prove that 67 years is cruel, or that 65 years is irresponsible. The aim is to find situations in which the parameter will fail, and to find out whether the state can catch them.
Fourteen days from slogan to questions that can bear a law
- Days 1–2: Write down which indicator is to move: balance, actual age of departure, HLY, disability.
- Days 3–4: Prepare the same data: ČSSZ as of 31. 12., ČSÚ HLY and life expectancy with the year, Eurostat in the same year.
- Days 5–7: Break down departures by industry, region and benefit channel. Verify at least three times that different years are not being added.
- Days 8–10: Verify exceptions: mining, occupational diseases, assessment, reduction.
- Days 11–12: Calculate the price of the accepted parameter including dampers, not only the saving on regular old-age payments.
- Day 13: Stress tests: a 65-year-old man in Ústí, a nurse on shifts, an IT consultant who wants to stay.
- Day 14: Decide according to the matrix, record what the number does not measure, and the date of the next review.
The evaluator should not start with a conclusion. For the fiscal they track the balance. For health the support of HLY in the same year as life expectancy. For work exposure. Each failure is classified: swap of indicators, average instead of spread, damper, institutional shortcut.
If one graph shows the statutory age and another HLY, we are testing two layers — which may be right, but we must name it so. The output is not only 65, or 67. It is a rule which data must lie beside the table, and the date of the next review. Mortality and HLY move. Without revision even a good parameter turns into superstition.
17. The fiscal account and health consequences cannot be fused
The pension table sets a legal threshold for a whole cohort, even though working load and health differ markedly among people. A fiscal parameter therefore cannot be passed off as a description of every person’s ability to work until the same day.
A uniform number 67 can hide a shift of some people into an early pension, disability or less demanding work. A narrow list of diagnoses concerns recognition of an occupational disease.[20] Assessment of disability is not bound to this list; it evaluates the decline in working capacity from a long-term unfavourable health state and also takes into account education, experience, knowledge and previous work.[7][21] These two legal regimes must not be swapped.
A shift of age can be part of a response to population ageing and the long-term balance of the system. At the same time the state should publish beside the fiscal projection also HLY, the actual age of departure, a breakdown by work and region and data on early and disability pensions.
A defensible parameter must, beside the long-term balance, show assumptions about health and work and the groups on whom it falls hardest. Without this check the average will hide differences that the statutory age itself does not explain.
At the moment when the law merely shifts a month in the table, we are choosing an accounting lever. At the moment when the same table decides who still lifts a load, who applies for a reduction and who ends in degree I, we are also choosing a structure of accountability. And then the question is no longer: “What should the retirement age be?”
Let us ask: What working conditions and functional limitations hide behind the average, and how will the system catch them before a person is left only with a reduction or another benefit?
— Jiný Kontext