Our World
in Data
Oxford Martin School logoUniversity of Oxford logoGlobal Change Data Lab logo
Data

Average effective age of retirement for women

About this data

Source
OECD (2018) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
November 28, 2020
Date range
1970–2018
Unit
years

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

OECD – Average effective age of retirement, by gender

The average effective age of retirement is calculated as a weighted average of (net) labour market withdrawals at different ages over a 5-year period for workers initially aged 40 and over.

The estimate for each year corresponds to the 5 year interval leading up to that year. For example, the observation for 1970 corresponds to (1965-70), 1971 to (1966-71) etc.

Labour force withdrawals are estimated based on changes in labour force participation rates rather than labour force levels to abstract from compositional effects. Estimates include both interpolations of census data as well as labour force surveys. For a breakdown by observation, see the following spreadsheet.

Note: The estimates for women in Turkey are based on 3-yearly moving averages of participation rates for each 5-year age group.

The 'Europe average' series includes: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom.

Retrieved on
November 28, 2020
Retrieved from
http://www.oecd.org/els/emp/average-effective-age-of-retirement.htm
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
OECD (2018). OECD Database on Average Effective Retirement Age.

The average effective age of retirement is calculated as a weighted average of (net) labour market withdrawals at different ages over a 5-year period for workers initially aged 40 and over.

The estimate for each year corresponds to the 5 year interval leading up to that year. For example, the observation for 1970 corresponds to (1965-70), 1971 to (1966-71) etc.

Labour force withdrawals are estimated based on changes in labour force participation rates rather than labour force levels to abstract from compositional effects. Estimates include both interpolations of census data as well as labour force surveys. For a breakdown by observation, see the following spreadsheet.

Note: The estimates for women in Turkey are based on 3-yearly moving averages of participation rates for each 5-year age group.

The 'Europe average' series includes: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom.

Retrieved on
November 28, 2020
Retrieved from
http://www.oecd.org/els/emp/average-effective-age-of-retirement.htm
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
OECD (2018). OECD Database on Average Effective Retirement Age.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Average effective age of retirement for women”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from OECD. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-085513/grapher/average-effective-retirement-women.html [online resource] (archived on May 12, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

OECD (2018) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

OECD (2018) – processed by Our World in Data. “Average effective age of retirement for women” [dataset]. OECD, “Average effective age of retirement, by gender” [original data]. Retrieved May 12, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-085513/grapher/average-effective-retirement-women.html (archived on May 12, 2026).

Download

Quick download

You can download the visualization as an image or download the chart data.